publishers
is retired
and living in France.

he’s on his second wife and
lives on
a farm in the country.

every now and then
he sends me
these long, long
e-mails talking about the wine,
the food, the people
and how much he
loves his life
since he
ditched the
first wife, gave up writing
and moved away.

in relative terms
he’s on the near side
of rich…

i swear to god
he got
none of that
from publishing
me.

i didn’t even answer
his last two
e-mails.

i didn’t know
what to say,
other than
i hope
he’s happy over there,
in France,
with his
2nd wife and
his fields and
his wine.
when you
get right down
to it,
at the end of it all,
we both won…

he
and i…

he’s got
France,
and i’ve got
me.

VIAvia Open Arts Forum
Image Credit:Bud Ellison

In a career spanning more than 50 years as a working writer, John Yamrus has published 26 volumes of poetry, 2 novels, 3 volumes of non-fiction and a children’s book. He has also had more than 2,000 poems published in magazines and anthologies around the world. Selections of his work have been translated into several languages, including Spanish, Swedish, French, Japanese, Italian, Romanian, Albanian, Estonian and Bengali. His poetry is taught in numerous colleges and universities. His website is: http://www.johnyamrus.com