Social networks

The book is Never Eat Alone. I must learn to network.
The bookseller doesn't have it around, but offers a slim volume of William Stafford's poems.
[A slim volume is what we call it when the book we like doesn't have many pages. Lazy is what we call the same book when we think it's crap.]
Because there are books I will always be poor. I need to network.

Mr. Stafford and I have lunch together. The conversation—at first—seems stilted.
He says So thin a life I have, scribbling dust / when I turn, trailing as if to follow / something inside the earth, something beyond / this place. If I accept what comes, / another sky is there. My serious face / bends to the ground, the dust, the lowered wings.
I say Cool.

I nibble some cheese. Mr. Stafford stares back at me.
We agree on a borrowed phrase, and lapse into companionable silence.