FREE VERSE Poem: Corn Chex, by Rich Glinnen

My wife says she doesn’t really like
the cereal I bought.
“It tastes like corn chips.
It just doesn’t taste good.
At all.
I don’t like it.”
“Ok,” I say, “I won’t buy it again.”
“That’s what I was getting to,” she says.

But before she arrives at Her Point,
my wife sometimes likes to take the scenic route
through Complain Town,

where the school buses are always stopping in front of you,
and there’s always a truck behind you,
and the lights are too quick,

and the houses are all high ranches,
and every single person has wind chimes,
and the paint on the fences is chipped,
and deflated decorations canvas the lawns,

and the bushes are too bristly,
and the trees won’t stop swaying,
and the hills are too sloped,

and the clouds are too suggestive,
and the sun is always eye level,

and the speed bumps are too high,
and there’s a sidewalk only on one side,

and the mailman could use a belt,
and the kids look wild,
and the elderly limp,

and the birds are always gathering
in the middle of the main road,
which has too many potholes,
and too many fallen branches,
and too many windblown garbage cans,
and is never quite long enough.