The Great American Novel

In the dream, I'm walking

hands stuffed way into my jeans,

fall leaves whirling on the sidewalk,

lampposts humming white light,

through the town where I went to college.

I'm looking at the rented house windows

and there's a few yellow empty squares—

but there's no parties going on. There's no

CD player blaring reggae, no

guys from freshman sem, no

girls with plaid shirts tied around their waists who want to talk to me, no

piles of crushed plastic cups.

Only the shadows of the boulevard trees from the streetlights.

I realize I'm alone, too. There's no one to

remind the group that 3rd and Elm has a keg,

drop a cigarette in the grass and lose it,

punch a stop sign and clutch their face in pretend injury.

As the raw emptiness and indifference of time hits me

(it's an ache, a squeezing of the eyes)

and I wake, for a moment

I understand Gatsby completely, understand

that there's nothing to make you whole.

Not here.