confessional

one more time, looking
straight at you,
kid, i've a mind to talk with
reckless abandon!

watch me swing onto the deck of your ship
with the dagger of poetry in my teeth! i jab
it at you with all the menace of a child
threatening a parent with a dinner knife.
you gently put me in the corner and i am
now the smallest pirate in the crew, one that
cannot swim. yarr! a protest from the brig;
i thought my words were so much sharper.

i am no stranger to humility no i have visited that island before
i have t-shirts and other merchandise from the gift store in
fact i know the shop clerk by name his name is hubert and
he doesn't look at me as i pay for my shameful items. hell
i've even applied for citizenship and before i even filled out
the forms they were all sighing and inviting me to sit closer
to their reassuring campfires. i told them i couldn't stay.
"i have business on the mainland," i said, and a small scrap
of confidence fell out of my pocket. i tried to hide it, but
it was bright, glowing, gold in the sand. they shielded their
eyes. i knew i wasn't welcome there any longer. this has

turned into a bad joke. i want to attempt
statuary. the next time i see you on the street i think i will freeze.
you might laugh or you might be confused
but understand that i am statuary and it will be a form of discipline
for me to keep my eyes away from you
for me to willfully pretend you are a ghost among the other ghosts
because there is a great discipline to this
it would be like forcing a moon to unlearn its gravity, i doubt it can
work, this un-physics, this un-attraction.

but i have to try! lately i have found more and more of myself
circling you and the pull of it is terrifying. you have an incredible
density i had no idea that something of your size had so many small
hands, hands of gravity, hands with sharp nails that dig into everything
that strays too close that draw blood that sting that claw that have a real
venom. the danger of you! the black, broken masts of ships that stick out of
your swirling waters. the adventure in navigating through a storm that destroys,
a red spot on jupiter that looks harmless in photographs but my god if it was even
possible to get close the people would know real fury would know real wrath the kind
that has boiled through generations. i'm talking about a storm that lasts hundreds of years.

i have a place and it is not with you.
i see you and him as an indigenous
tribe that may or may not practice
cannibalism. i want to learn more
about your ways but i do not want
to taint the isolation, the separate-
ness, and i do not want to be eaten.
it is less a matter of fear than
you might think. it is not a fear
for myself, it is a fear for you.
the jungle explorer can watch
from the trees without disturbing
your alien, beautiful rituals.
you may be the last of your kind.

my favorite poets traveled and wrote about venice
and paris and more obscure cities. i have been to
disney world, at my farthest. i am not well read i
am not well traveled and i have a very low opinion
of myself in general. koch slept with more women
than i have met. most of the others were gay. i am
none of these great people and i have no mind to be.
the real world is waiting for me outside in a long,
black car. i don't know where it is going to take me
but i know there is someone else in the back seat.
i can't see her yet, just her legs as the door opened.
i thought i caught a glimpse of her bright red toe nails
flashing in the sun. but i was just stepping out of the
hotel and the light was in my eyes, blinding,
i'm sure

i was mistaken now. i do not want
this poem to involve a duality but
i'm afraid it has to. clearly i am mad
about you and there must be a way
no no no you are happy, you are
perfect where you are and i'll be
gone soon enough. look for me
in a bullet-riddled car
i intend to find a dangerous
woman to die with in violence,
it will take a large posse
to track us down it will end
in gunfire be sure to look for
it in the papers. we would be
a headline waiting to be
written we would be bold
and we would be above
the fold, the law, the others.

yours is a beauty of many arms with many hands wielding many weapons,
a vengeful deity wreathed in flame. this might be an exaggeration, but it
is better to not test the gods. they have a way of knowing things, parents
watching children taking knives from the drawer, concerned but smiling.

this is where we part ways, partner.
i'm not going to apologize this time.
i've had fun. i am going to miss you
incredibly, achingly, but at least you
know now. if you pass a statue on
the street please keep walking and
do not inspect its construction, there
are flaws and cracks all over. the city
has been meaning to remove it for
almost four years now.