by Eric Freeze
I wish I could be A navy seal—just the way I imagine it— Undisciplined, the maverick. Where the bullets and shrapnel Pass by harmlessly like Folds in the air. Near the end of my life, my meaty pockets would hold an Assortment of adventures: Chasing a mig through a Tawny desert at dawn, Splashing down a foreign canyon in An inflatable dinghy Or rescuing a fatale POW With size double D breasts and A penchant for leather. I don't know how many times I would escape with just The long sinews of my arms Or how many times I would find That I had been betrayed by What I hope to know. It's like I'm in one of Woody Allen's anticapitalist dramas— Bananas—a shaky parody of what is to some Real life. It's only near the end that I realize I'm not any of the characters with Guns and authority, but The man with a harp in the closets, Playing his empty notes Until someone hears them, Paints my words into the corners Of the screen, and hides them under The dead extra with bloody gauze in his mouth. When the credits roll, I'm the sour memory of a dying wound, The remnants of truth in fantasy Turned into a malaise of Forgotten identity.
