Write a novel, Vee tells me, and I say,
Aren't there enough lies in the world?
I'm thinking of the great works of fiction,
great in the sense of big, like the Warren Report,
the 9/11 Commission Report, and
the daily news
but she is thinking of broader horizons,
the ones we use to keep from thinking about
death and destruction, the world of the imagination,
God, as some would have it, but I'm too stupid
to understand the poetics of a Wallace Stevens,
unfortunately, just too stupid, so I keep wondering,
is there something between
truth and beauty, or are they
really the same?
If so, I may have missed the boat.