PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS <br> 
 <br> 
When in the course of Hubert's day           <br> 
events conspired to go awry,                 <br> 
when neighbors' sewage oozed up his drain    <br> 
again, when shoe-dirt stained the swatch <br> 
that hides the wine stain on his rug,        <br> 
when a possum nesting beneath his trailer    <br> 
gave birth, and a dead branch tore a ragged  <br> 
hole in his rectilinear roof,                <br> 
Hubert looked around and said,               <br> 
I am the master of all I survey.            <br> 
This thought depressed him, and it was hot, <br> 
so he went straight to the air-conditioned  <br> 
public library. Avoiding                    <br> 
Derelicts' Corner, where the <i>Times</i>          <br> 
slows down and takes all day to read,       <br> 
he browsed through <i>Mobile Home Repair,</i>      <br> 
<i>Consumer Reports</i> on used-car tests,       <br> 
<i>How We Will Journey to the Stars,</i>         <br> 
and tales of Kaiser Karl von Habsburg's   <br> 
comic-opera-costumed raids                <br> 
to regain Saint Istvan's crooked crown.   <br> 

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<a href="books.html">Bruce Tindall</a>
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Published in <cite> 
The Pitsburgh Quarterly</cite>