The person at Waffle House
drops my card and starts crying.
She’s here alone until 2. It’s 2.
Kind of hard to avoid the fact
that I am part of the problem.

A few more beers in, we talk rejection, the places we’re sending our stories, how it doesn’t seem like there are many outlets where the editors might be having these same conversations about pop culture and writing, how the whole landscape just doesn’t seem like much fun at all. Hey, one of us says, too many beers in now: What if we started our own literary magazine?

One summer, I started explaining myself. There was no reason for it, or if there was, I couldn’t clarify it even to myself. It could have been the lack of talking in the previous summers, all leading up to the taciturnity of winters, the dry mouths and moody colds. Then again, talking wasn’t the same as explaining.

My career as an international bank robber was brief and unprofitable but at least I never got caught. After three decades I’ve stopped watching for INTERPOL over my shoulder.