Beautiful Lie

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“Je suis un, défait par une femme.”

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I

A beetle murmured

From the dirt,

“Here comes the sun,”

And I believed it.

Credit me with righteousness,

I prayed the Sun King

But the Sun King fell silent

In the unsurprising spring.

“April is cruel,”

Elliot said between empty boxes

And I—of little faith—believed him.

I believed T. S. not because of

Blind faith but because I myself

Experienced that mad season.

I, myself, put my finger in the wound.

Sylvia told me she had to leave me,

That I had to die before her time—

But I did not believe her;

I thought she was just fooling,

Just trying to get even.

I put my head in an oven

To see what was cooking.

Chris stared at me

From behind blue eyes.

You have been catching on, he said.

I feel stupid, I said,

You knew all along

That you were the highway

And I was only a degenerate

Passenger. I caught this from you.

Roger showed me how

To build a wall;

Hewson taught me how

To tear it down.

Elevate yourself, he said,

(Rise, he said.),

It’s a beautiful day.

Paul gives me vertigo

So I change the channel.

I saw Emily alone in her room

As she fumbled at my soul.

Then Micheal sang

“I will be your father figure”

But this brought little solace

To the soul in Amherst,

Nor to mine in Little Rock.

(Joni was slouching toward Bethlehem.

Help me, I said, I think I’m falling in love,

As I pulled my head from the oven.

It is not the first time, she said,

And baby it won’t be the last.

Don’t be a slave to her, she coddled,

You are a free man in Paris.)

I woke up to butterflies and zebras,

Her beauty waiting aboard a waiting train.

I am running maniacally late,

Caught in crosstown traffic,

I am alone but I am not the same.

Where are you going with that gun in your hand,

She asked me,

Looking for a sister who will love me.

II

A cold frost numbed my mind

(On a road that chose me)

On a day without sun.

My son was born on that day

And my grandmother died.

I treated this coincidence as a

Significant event:

The river ego, wide and deep,

And miles to go before I sleep.