William Heath has published five poetry books: The Walking Man, Steel Valley Elegy, Going Places, Alms for Oblivion, Prime Time; three chapbooks: Night Moves in Ohio, Leaving Seville, and Inventing the Americas; three novels: The Children Bob Moses Led (winner of the Hackney Award), Devil Dancer, and Blacksnake’s Path; a work of history, William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest (winner of two Spur Awards and the Oliver Hazard Perry Award); and a collection of interviews, Conversations with Robert Stone. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Hiram College. He lives in Annapolis. www.williamheathbooks.com

The End of Edgar

At the station I try to explain
that I’m a missing person,
even offer a cash reward to
anyone with the misfortune
to find me. The cops ask

for my name and I reply
AWOL. Without a pause
they ask for my full last.
“Leave,” I reply. “As in tree?’
they ask. “No, as in this

bird might fly anywhere
out of this world,” but they
don’t get the allusion to
Edgar Allan Poe—in our day
and age, who would?

It used to be when you
went to vote in Baltimore
you were plied with free
booze provided you put
the right mark on the ballot.
Best of all you could do this

multiple times at various
polling places in the city
until you were sufficiently
soused to cease being
a good citizen for the rest
of the day. Sometimes, as

in the sad case of Poe—
addicted to alliteration,
jangling rhyme schemes,
and hard drinking—he
will never write again,
it is the end of his line.

Tall Tales and High Dives

If you seek me in the summer
look to the shallow end
of the pool. I won’t be up
on the high dive, that’s for sure.
In fact, I haven’t seen a pool
with a high dive for years,
too easy to hit your head,

I fear, or take a belly
flopper that knocks your
stuffing out. When I was
in high school my so-called
friends tried to force me
to mount a high platform
designed for any suicidal

lunatics among us, aka
your average teenage guy.
I displayed an exceptional
courage and integrity by
resisting. My buddies then
shook my hand in admiration
for my guts and character

and that was that—do you
believe the end of this story?
It started out as mostly true
but resorted to a few stretchers
when I saw it might reflect
discredit on me or my buddies.
Take your pick.

Ohio Presidents

It’s not easy being Ohio.
In times of crises, we often
supply the nation with one
of its mediocre presidents,
a compromise candidate,
not without good intentions

but a tendency to cave
when the going gets tough
or to be too receptive to
an assassin’s bullet such as
Garfield of some integrity
and McKinely of imperial

dreams. Grant stands out
since he really did care
about the fate of the slaves
who became Freedmen
and realized that those who
owned them deserved some

governmental malice until
they came to their senses
and rejected racism, which
hardly ever happened.
I even feel some sympathy
for Harding whose mother

told him it was a good thing
he wasn’t born a girl since he
could never say no and was
overly fond of the boys in
the back room marveling at
how the cash kept rolling in.

Bread Loaf Confidential

He fucks like the devil
one famous poet told me
about another famous poet
on a Vermont mountain top
where every summer
several hundred writers
gather to fiddle with
sentences and try diddle
each other. It’s a grand
old tradition that dates
back to Robert Frost
who lived in the area.

One evening I heard
a celebrated male novelist
read a chapter about
a difficult illegal abortion
at a home for boys in Maine,
and the prose was so graphic
a celebrated female poet
fainted in the aisle.

That was the summer
of the Sandanistas
and some wag called
for a fictitious meeting
to be led by a well-known
female poet fresh from
Central America. That
was also the year a
well-known novelist
urged us all to be more
political in our writing
and a few days later
crashed his motorcycle
and died on the spot.