I’m a pop song
once mistaken for holy truth
by someone who heard me
at a perfect fallow moment.

Does it matter that they
misinterpreted me
and believed me to be
greater than I am?

I doubt myself as a result.
I question their faith,
dismiss it as so much
transference, then a small voice

tells me I should instead
be living up to those
operatic expectations. Whenever I
have tried that, I have been

terrified of the responsibility
that weighed in with it. Still,
I have tried it; I have noticed
changes in rhythm, in melody;

something under the arrangement
that estranges me from my known self,
pushes me to ask what I am and
what I am missing.

I turn again and again
back to my memory of them.
See them listening to me
as if I held all meaning,

all truth for them. I listen,
straining to hear
the same,
and it’s good. It is fine.