Originally posted 9/23/2013; originally titled “Lie Of A Brother.”

Wake up at midnight to find
my daytime mask gone from the nightstand.

I can hear one of my fictional characters
typing somewhere.  I’ll bet he has it on

and I’ll bet he’s working
on another fictional character.

I can tell by the tempo —
it’s my tempo. He’s killing those keys.

It’s OK with me that someone I made up
handles my day-face so well he can make up another.

My myth is taking over my life
and my bastard is better at being me than I am.

I built him well, it seems.
He’s caught my spark for creating 

so I think I’ll roll over, go back to sleep, 
maybe skip living altogether tomorrow.

Let him and his creation handle it.  
I like it better here — dozing off 

while listening to my betters
laboring in the dark.

Originally posted 6/27/2008 — original title, “Mass Pike Moment, June 2008.”

The pond by the side of the road
is obscured in a green-brown mist.
If I wasn’t stuck in traffic
I might never have seen that color
that may be the result of the sunlight
pouring through the green leaves behind it,
or perhaps it is caused by the oak pollen
so thick in the air
that it clearly has changed
more than my breathing.

It is something I would not likely have seen
if I had gone whizzing by
intent on my eventual destination,
or if I had noticed it
I might have missed its hue,
and if it showed up again
in my thoughts
I might have decided
to say it was mist colored,
the default silver-gray that shows up in every poem.
I might then have turned it into a metaphor
for something else
instead of letting it stand on its own.

Perhaps all morning fog
carries a shade worth noting, a shade
only visible when the viewer
is halted in his progress toward importance
long enough to see it,
long enough
to be content in the viewing
and the knowledge
that everything that is known and believed
has a loophole in it somewhere
that is large enough to drive through.