From Picture to Page: County Fair

Title ripped from Bruce Springsteen song. Acknowledged the only other poet I know to come from my hometown.

County Fair
For Dan Provost

We can come down
on a heatwaved weekend,
be each other's
carnival attractions.

What else is there?
The kiddie rides, the lines
for four dollar treats
you get from drug stores..

The political tables,
the nepotistic congressman
who chased my cousin
out of town hall.

I should get a booth
by the Elvis impersonator,
who still fights for print
in the last local paper.

I'll bill myself
the poet laureate
of my old neighborhood,
no board vote required.

There's only one way
to be any kind of poet
from Bellingham, Mass.,
and that's to leave.