(c) 12/2020
Miscast
I
should have given up
playing
the ingenue decades ago
but
none of the other roles fit.
The
harpy comes close.
On
occasion, I shave my head
and
swagger like rough trade.
I
can’t make it convincing.
I
am not as gifted as I would like to be
with
posture, attitude, phrasing—
though
I almost passed for mother once.
And
he was young—
they
are always young.
Eternals—until
time catches up.
The
first time I saw him
I
thought, There he is—
My
split-off animus.
I
saw what I wanted.
It
wasn’t him.
I
have a faulty aperture—
something
in me misaligned,
a
loose screw sprung years ago.
I
never learned how to behave
around
a human,
neither
how to hold
nor
how to be held.
