Today’s Poem

Case Study

The project’s gone gonzo again,
I’m off the grid and meandering
between participants and observers,
just a good stones throw from skid row.
I call out to them for thick description.
Note their fingers and toes, the way
skin makes a web, the knots that dirt
always finds. Turn the bare bulb on high
to sweat it out of the focus groups.
They lie. They know the names
and pictures on the cartons momma
bought before the storm summers ago.
This was the case study of small towns
and minds. I tilt my hat and am atypical.

-Jason Braun