If I gave you a nail would you call it a rooster,
or even a screw, closer to true but still no cigar.
Would you eat it with cream cheese and capers
in the corner deli of your imagination,
the bagel discarded on the floor,
now a toy tire broken from a Tonka truck
by an angry boy not getting his way.
All your imagination, not mine.
Don’t confuse my words with your wanting,
substituting your musings for mine.
Focus on my words, damn it.
Focus on the ink on the page.
A detective enters a crime scene,
sees a man on a couch with a knife
buried halfway to the hilt in his chest.
‘Our victim has been shot,’ the faux
Columbo says, ‘Look for the casings,’
completely ignoring signs to the contrary.
The nail and the knife are real.
The rest is your mind racing away
from the stubborn fault of facts.
Don’t shake off evidence like a dog
shakes rain from her shaggy coat.
Slow down Rambo.
You can’t take a poem by storm,
mounting a full frontal attack.
Let it rest in your ears and eyes
before torturing it mercilessly
with your imposing mind.
The poem will confess under duress.
But it will be a false confession.