"Authorial Intent" by Theodore Mersault

They’ll tell you

(as they shift

their non prescription

John-Lenon-meets-Gandhi

glasses)

That they have wanderlust

For prose

And you want to tell them

That they don’t explore poems,

They hide in them

Like (and,

excuse the simile)

Literary refugees

They’ll tell you

That rain turns streets

Into brushstrokes

Instead of driving hazards

That roses and snow

And starlings with broken wings

Are grand, vast hints

In (and,

forgive the metaphor)

God’s fucked up

Game of clue.

And you want to tell them

That you suspect it was the english professor

In the library with a rope

Trapped in the nonfiction section.