What I Would Give Myself To Be

What I Would Give Myself To Be
By Max Winter

Roosevelt tells me loudly and clearly what I am doing wrong. A rat crawls across the stage. Out in the open city. The terms are absent or unnecessary. Someone is not telling me the truth. Terrible thing to lose your mind. Orchestral backup for the dropping of lead. What lead. How foolish could I have been. On the curtain is written the name of a typhoon. In quavery letters. She likes me, she doesn’t, she likes me, she doesn’t. Big Roosevelt head on a small Roosevelt body. Is this important. Do I wake. George Jones descends from the wings. Am I George Jones. George Jones is not singing but shooting. Pick a peck. A cough. Sleigh bells. It is a long way, over the tundra, dirty and indistinct dogs, where do they live the ones I love. Long hut. Ranch house. Shadows on blinds, on shades, too much snow to pick someone out. Is it snow or sleet. What’s funny. I say again. All my flies are zipped. In the house the cider. A crowd a-smother. Pipes a-knock. Two koala bears nuzzling my cuff. A kick and a kick and I cannot kick them off. I run through a thinning white. I sense that it is not mine. Which is why I cannot escape. Rumor. Levity.