If he's being honest, he wishes he was at home with a Bourbon and a good book. He's never been one for pageantry. But the party is to honor him. The other retiring faculty members too, of course. But ... [+]
A police van
has been
overturned
and the Burger King
on the corner
is burning,
and if you
absorb
the oily black
smoke,
willfully
breathe it in,
your heart
muscles
will seize up
and your family
desert you,
you'll forever
be marked down
in the book
as an arsonist,
a looter,
a so-called
"outside agitator,"
who made,
for a while,
this murdering
old world
to tremble.
