ANSWERED PRAYERS 

—Truman Capote, Too Brief a Treat: 
The Letters of Truman Capote 

When did I realize—
I was writing something different?

What made IN COLD BLOOD—
a different kind of novel?
____________

Ditching everything I knew—
calling it a nonfiction novel?

Different than my early stories—
OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS?
____________

Different than my travelogues—
my filmscript for THE INNOCENTS?

Was it later toward the end—
leaving ANSWERED PRAYERS undone?
____________

Had Kansas really changed me—
subverting and seducing me?

Queering me into writing this—
strange “nonfiction” novel?
____________

The bleak gothic landscape—
the texture of language itself?

Forcing me to junk everything—
all the genres I ever knew
____________

Exiling myself outta myself—
then putting me back in

NO more invisible reportage—
instead becoming the Other
____________

Telling the story all over again—
alone here in this darkness