One-Wheeled Skateboard

By Alan Asselin

How about a one-wheeled
skateboard with headlights.
How about a one-legged
derelict with head lice.

A motorized wheelbarrow
delivers bowling balls
or boxes of smiles or pies.

I’m losing light, frightened
by how much more is revealed
by the dark. What matter
if I cannot read my writing.

Four short pages in about
an hour. I could write a book
in two weeks, easy. But then
I might feel obliged to read
it. What value is there in that?
(It has been fun, though.)
Time to go home and eat popcorn.

“I like to write stuff and leave it, see what happens, sort of like graffiti in a way, or sidewalk art. It’s a little less ethereal than sidewalk art, but…”

Alan Asselin

Alan Asselin is a poet and photographer living in Boston. He was formally trained as a photo lab specialist by the U.S. Air Force, and he worked as a photographer for the Offult Air Force Base newspaper in 1972. He participated in protests against the Vietnam war, and raised four children in Vermont.