More than once
I’ve mistaken my current self
for a teenager. 
I’ve answered incorrectly
on my official biography. 
I’ve wondered
who the hell that is in the mirror,
on the license,
in others’ eyes.

I’ve ruthlessly cut me as if I were cane,
looking for sweetness.  Cooked myself,
hoping for a square meal.  Woven myself
into doormats.  Welded myself
to juggernauts.  Stapled myself
to manuscripts, glued myself
to the TV thinking I might
be better off inside. 

Ah, division,
myth of the shadow self,
delusion of persona.

In fact
I’m easily explained:
every face I’ve assumed
or been assigned,
any self I’ve come to believe
is hidden under the surface,
has functioned
as a cover
for escaping
what I am:

coward,
liar,
cheat,
lazy fox too smart to be
foxy,
spineless hedgehog rolling into
a futile ball.

It’s a lie when anyone says,
“that’s not the man
I thought I knew.”

Listen,
they say,
it’s OK. 

We know
you couldn’t help
being born this way.

Your color’s
your color, your gender’s
your gender.  That accent’s

a marker, but that’s all
we hear there.  No reason
to believe it matters,

really.  We know
the biology, the genetics,
your body’s opinion

of what your body
should be.  What’s
the hurry?  All’s

forgiven, all’s forgotten
if you will do the same.
It’s not like we need

to name the past, right?
We’re blind to it, we figure
you’ll thank us for

our blindness.  So buck up
and c’mon, don’t be that way —
and so we can

move forward.  Forward,
down that path over there,
we take such pride in.

Just step back a bit,
and let us go first — after all,
we know what we’re doing,

and we’d hate to see you, so tender
and new, get hurt
on the way.

A single bird
over the church
at the top of our hill.
I can see from his fingered wings
he’s a buzzard, he of
naked head and taste for death,

but from here,
he soars.

It’s going to snow tomorrow
and I have an urge
to cover the daffodils
that are just emerging
from the compacted mulch,

but it passes.
They’ll be fine.

In the dark of the apartment
the fears and concerns of the day
slide around me in bed
like eels — electric or moray
I can’t say, but they come close
and my skin pulls back;

then I sleep,
and they move away.

In waves upon waves
the disguised and dissembling
cover the earth.  From where I stand
there’s nothing out there but
a danger of drowning,

but I bob up to the surface
and see the sky every time.