“get it in writing”

i never think to “get it in writing”

because i trust working person-

to-person and want it to be that way

i dropped off books at a mom-and-

pop bookstore once for them to sell

on commission, but got no receipt, so,

when i went to see how they had sold

though they were gone, i got zilch

and now i am hung up again

producing Exhalation, the best book

in my Nandria series

i do hope we can come to an agreement

in writing, this time

author error

years now of blossoming characters

growing in themselves, celebrated

by judges but not the stories

they create by interacting

another rejection, another intimation

that i, their transcriber, am their burier

perhaps by submitting to publishers

i know rather than those who

would believe in what they tell