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Horrible. Like the first line of a middle school book report. Delete.

Poetry matters because

Worse. Delete.

My reason for

Delete, delete, delete!

Barbara shuts off her computer, spends some more time staring into space, then gets up from her desk and shucks off her jeans. She pulls on a pair of shorts, adds a sleeveless tee, ties back her hair in a sloppy ponytail, and goes running.

It’s too hot to run, the temperature’s got to be topping ninety, but it’s all she can think of to do. She circles the block… and it’s a long one. By the time she gets back to the house where she will live with her parents only until she starts college and begins another life, she’s sweating and gasping for breath. Nevertheless, she goes around the block again. Mrs. Caltrop, who is watering her flowers under an enormous sunhat, looks at her like she’s crazy. Probably she is.

In front of her computer, looking at the blank screen and the flashing cursor that seemed to mock her, she felt frustrated and—face it—scared. Because Olivia refuses to help. Because her mind was as blank as the screen. But now, running full out with sweat darkening her shirt and trickling down the sides of her face like extravagant tears, she realizes what was beneath the fright and frustration. She’s angry. She feels fucking toyed with. Made to jump through hoops like a circus dog.

Back in the house—for the time being all hers, with her mother and father at their respective jobs—she takes the stairs two at a time, leaves a path of her clothes in the hallway on her way to the bathroom, then gets in the shower with the handle turned all the way to C. She lets out a scream and clutches herself. She sticks her throbbing face in the cold spray and screams again. It feels good to scream, as she learned on that day two months ago when she did it with Marie Duchamp, so she does it a third time.

She gets out of the shower shivering and covered with goosebumps but feeling better. Clearer. She towels up and down until her skin is glowing, then goes back to her room, picking up her clothes on the way. She tosses them on the bed, goes naked to her computer, reaches for the button that turns it on, then thinks No. Wrong.

She grabs one of her school notebooks from the shelf beside her desk, flips past scribbled notes on Henry VII and the War of the Roses, and comes to a blank page. She tears it out almost carelessly, not ignoring the frayed edge but glad of it. She’s thinking of something Olivia said in one of their morning meetings. She told Barbara it came from a Spanish writer named Juan Ramón Jiménez, but she, Olivia, first heard it from Jorge Castro. She said Jorge claimed it was the cornerstone of everything he ever wrote or hoped to write: If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.

Barbara does that now, writing her essay quickly across the blue ruled lines. According to the Penley requirements, it is not to exceed 500 words. Barbara’s is much shorter than that. And it turns out Olivia is here to help her after all, with something else she said on one of those morning meetings that have changed her life. Maybe more than college ever will.

I write poetry because without it I am a dead engine. She pauses only for a moment, then adds: That I should be asked to write an essay about my poetry after sending so much of it to you is idiotic. My poetry is my essay.

She folds the ragged-edged sheet twice and stuffs it in an envelope that’s already stamped and addressed. She throws on some clothes, runs back down the stairs, and goes out the door, leaving it open. She sprints down the block, probably ruining her cold shower with fresh sweat. She doesn’t care. She needs to do this before she can change her mind. Doing that would be wrong, because what she’s written is right.

There’s a mailbox on the corner. She drops the envelope inside, then bends over, grasping her knees and breathing hard.

I don’t care if I win or lose. I don’t care, I don’t care.

She may regret what she wrote later, but not now. Standing at the mailbox, bent over with her wet hair hanging in her face, she knows it’s the truth.

The work matters.

Nothing else. Not prizes. Not being published. Not being rich, famous, or both.

Only the work.

July 1, 2021

8:03.

Bonnie Rae Dahl bikes down Red Bank Avenue and turns in at the Jet Mart.

8:04.

She dismounts, takes off her helmet, and shakes out her hair. She puts the helmet on the seat and goes in.

“Hey, Emilio,” she says, and gives him a smile.

“Hey,” he responds, and gives it right back.

She goes past the Beer Cave to the back cooler, where the soft drinks are waiting. She grabs a Diet Pepsi. She starts back down the aisle, then pauses at the rack of snack cakes—Twinkies, Ho Hos, Yodels, Little Debbies. She picks up a package of Ho Hos, considering. Emilio is putting cigarettes into the rack behind the counter. Outside, a van passes the store, heading downhill.

8:05.

Roddy Harris is driving the van. He’s got the hypo of Valium in the pocket of the sportcoat he’s wearing. Emily is already in the wheelchair, ready to go… and tonight she needs it. Her sciatica has returned with a vengeance. Roddy pulls onto the cracked tarmac of what used to be Bill’s Automotive and Small Engine Repair with the van’s sliding door facing the abandoned shop.