by John Cutler
You think I’m here
by choice? As if standing in the middle
of Times Square in August sweating and smelling
sweat-even the dogs sweat-is a career
children choose in kindergarten
are you
gonna buy a hot dog? Oh. Good. Then I’ll
tell you what I told the teacher when I
was a kid. I want to be an actor
I said. I want to be an actor. Only
the stage for me, too, with the audience
there in the liquid space outside what’s real and lovely, pulsing like breathing algae-
you step out from the curtain with a breath like feeling cold water wet your leg hair
and then bang!-Willie Loman-and the whole
damn theater’s empty inside and craving
something to fill ’em up
you want mustard
John Alba Curler is a senior English major who hails from Centerville, Utah. Married as of April 2001, he is overshadowed by the intelligence, beauty, and perspicacity of his wife, Karolyn. He will graduate in April 2002 and plans to study American literature with an emphasis on Latino writers in a very prestigious graduate program hitherto unidentified.