I am not love, and
lust is no object I possess;
attention is a cardboard city
strung with garish Xmas
lights.

I am not man or woman—
my present state attained by
psychosomatic chromosomal
elimination.

I am not indulgence or delight;
the food I chew is cold and
bland, plucked from a gaunt
metal grid under the pale
light of a wheezing
refrigerator.

I am not corporeal, my
two-dimensioned body
won’t be discovered in
sunshine or by dark,
for I have sidled
into a realm of gray
on gray—an endless
archipelago of mist-clung
uncertainties.

I am not the skeleton key to
your locked strongbox of
happiness or despair—
not the kindling or the
matchhead to strike
sparks upon your dry
desires.

I am not genius, nor am I
revolution at the tip of
a sword, the end of a
gun, or in the gleaning of
catchphrase words on a picket