I’m halfway through

and I’ve gotten used

to the way it wants

to be read. This writer

wants to spoon it up,

wants to watch me

swallow it. This writer

makes a point of good

deeds, clean living,

god and country,

when what I want

is sin and shame,

the rusty metal edge

of cruelty, varieties

of pain, his mother

still crying years later,

just like mine. I want

a writer who’s given up

on the moral of the story,

one who’ll hand me

a knife and sit back

to see what I do with it.