One summer in a boarding house
in Roanoke I read the entire run
of Jane Austen's novels and realized
that a modest life spent without
yearning for what I didn't have still
offered satisfactions, which I found
by climbing steep, snow-covered hills,
by spending money I had earned
on literary reviews and costumey clothes,
by watching the Soul Train dancers
on solitary Saturday nights. Soon
I stopped fighting against my life.
My Tiny Career
