(On Schoolsville)

The hand scribbled message in the book,
just below the author’s details, said
“I love you, Billy Collins,”
with three exclamation points, which shows
a sort of anxiety, like one wasn’t good enough
to detain the writer’s odd intensity. Maybe
like saying,
Look
at me. When I do, I imagine
some housewife, standing
in that paper landscape, a lipstick red ‘A’
tattooed on one of her naked breasts. Purple
chalk dust misting from her mouth
whenever she whispers, Where have you been
all my life?