The Summer Between College and the Real World

By G. Murray Thomas

I lived just a few miles off campus,
unemployed, and not looking very hard.I knew it would be time to move soon.

I spent my afternoons on the front porch,
shaded, but barely, from the New England summer,the town quiet around me,
in the lull between semesters,and tried to read Ulysses.

When the language got too dense,
or the day got too hot,I would walk down to the Connecticut River
for a cooling dip.

I told myself I don’t have to
understand the book
just appreciate its prose.I told myself it made no difference
if I went to New York or California.I told myself I had a lifetime to figure it out.

Published in Spilt Ink Poetry