It’s rumored that you’ve admitted
to being an atheist in private 
while praising God in public. 
Come clean. You will gain new fans
and the old ones
will find a way to negate it
as they’ve negated
all the rest.

It’s rumored that you love
young skin. No swimming
in the blood of virgins for you, though —
you prefer to just grab hold and 
wait to see if it gives itself up to you.
Come clean and admit it —
oh, but you have, haven’t you?
You’ve all but danced upon
a field of their bodies in an arena
and no one seems to care.

It’s rumored that while you are as dumb
as stonecutter tools, you can be wielded
effectively in the smash before the grab.
Come clean — America loves a fool, prefers
an idiot to a genius, thinks any other organ
or muscle trumps a brain hands down,
no matter how small the hands in question.

It’s rumored that rumors make the man.
Come clean — you started half of them,
didn’t you? Self-invention as a path
to the narrow edge of the Big Jump.
Maybe you even think that if there is no God
there’s a void you can fill? Maybe you think
they love the way you touch them? Maybe
you think you really can think, do think,
are the greatest thinker in the moment
we’re in? Come clean — clean as a dog whistle,
clean as a golf ball clearly arcing
toward the rough — not that it matters much
where it lands, right?