David Shumate’s Next Prose Poem

David Shumate is alone in his basement typing at his computer and smelling the vinegar he diluted with water and then used to mop his floor. He is writing about me in my basement smelling vinegar and tapping on this keyboard. He’s composing another of his prose poems, this time about my wish to do this full-time, to quit my teaching job and provide for my family through words on a page. David Shumate will publish that prose poem in a book that will come out this summer. It will win an award and he will appear on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show. Housewives across the nation will buy the book and sit at kitchen tables to read the prose poem on page forty-seven about me in this basement. They will smell the diluted vinegar on their own floors. Each woman will close her eyes and imagine making all my dreams come true.