The Problem of Fiction
She always writes poems. This summer
she’ s starting a novel. It’ s in trouble already.
The characters are easy — a girl
and her friend who is a girl
and the boy down the block with his first car,
an older boy, sixteen, who sometimes
these warm evenings leaves his house to go dancing
in dressy clothes though it’ s still light out.
The girl has a brother who has lots of friends,