Literature in the 21st Century [excerpt]

Sometimes I wish I drank coffee
or smoked Marlboros, or maybe cigars--
yes, a hand-rolled Havana cigar
in its thick, manly wrapping,

. . .

and I'd be writing about war and old losses--
man things--and not where I am, in this
pristine and sensitive vessel, all
fizzy water, reticence, and care, all reduced
fat and purified air, behind my deprived
computer, where I can't manage even
a decaf cap, a mild Tiparillo, a glass of
great-taste-less-filling light beer.

From Long for This World: New and Selected Poems by Ronald Wallace. Copyright © 2003 by Ronald Wallace. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press. All rights reserved.