I got kicked out of college
for threatening my roommate.
It was the last time I saw Leah.
My parents divorced. The big guy
shacked up with a racist shrew from Jersey.
I worked. I drank. I saw movies with Bragdon.
Turned twenty-one. Did nothing for my birthday.
I began to show signs of bad mental health.
I lived in East Boston, with Mom.

The woman across the street

was always blaring cacophonous music
and screaming abuse at her kids.
I published atrocious poems in Mudfish.

I got into fights with ardent Catholics.
And then I became one, reverting desperately

to my baptismal creed. I worked in Brookline.
I quit my job in Brookline.
I still loved Leah, madly, passionately,
though, of course, I would never see her again. 
I thought I'd apply

to Fordham, to Dartmouth, to Bard.

Then I thought the better of it.
The monks of Spencer wouldn't take me.
They said, go back to college.
I listened to right-wing talk-radio.
I read Bill Buckley, and relished the syllables.
I read Miss Moore, and craved her peaceful wisdom,
I who was neither peaceful nor wise.