mmmmmxcvi

Riding the Soldiers of Romance

     I would like to beat someone with him
     but I can’t get him off my shoulders, he’s like evening.
                                                          —Frank O’Hara

People tell me I’m romantic.  But
I’m a logical guy.  It’s only when I 

happen to not be paying attention

for a little bit that I get caught up
in some affair.  They’re always sordid.
My unbroken rule is that each time that

tornado gets me, something so absurd
and with which I have no experience
gets added to each ride.  Which is surely

a hell created only for me.  I’d rather 

see myself spit-roasted and served to the

squadron to which I belong (or belonged;

death removes, remember?).  “How’d he
kick the bucket?”  “Trying to follow that
roadmap to LOVE, that’s how!”  My

brain hurts to remember how to explain

that last part to you.  Because of the
crime of which I’m accused (a

story, so sorry, that’s terribly true)....
Relieved of his hell, that slow act
of dying was to be his final curse,

or worse.  People, a lot of them,
thought him romantic.  Daily, he

could be heard relaying this aloud.

 

“It’s true, I swear, and this I’ve been 

told, at least once a day.”  At least up

until today.  Does that mean I’m dead?