Story Problems, Muriel Nelson

Charles Hood, Only in America 1

 

Story Problems

 

1. They say we are sleeping together, he said.
   Why did the whole town feel warm?
2. Do yearnings of felines determine
   the cat’s side of a door?
3. When stories were aural and oral, how did
   homonyms ‘appear’? As foreign ghosts?
   Pun babble? Bastards’ Names-the-Younger?
4. We need numbers here. Say somebody hired Jack
   to research the great white whale gene spliced
   to Kentucky Wonder. Jack was a good bean
   counter. But how do you find a reliable narrator?
   Jack climbed that stalk and wrote, It’s black
   as soot (aphis? smut?) at the top, black as a huge boot.
5. Two roots from the same beach snag
   raise long-necked heads to be basted in tide.
   Why is one bleached and the other burnt?
6. They sing in head voices. Most stories do.
   (Don’t you like chest voices better?)
7. What if we’re all dead-headed?
8. Do stories long for a soft spot
   in the other side?

____________________________
Muriel Nelson