Three Days of Confession, and: Conventional Hero, and: Plain Sight

Three Days of Confession

He was very crass about it. No time for babies, he said.Defiant. No time for weddings. He let only a few in on the secret.They would feel his distress. Try to divert him. Still, he wantedThe fruit of his body to be removed from the human condition.He confessed everything to his uncle one afternoonWhile the game was on the television. No one, he said,Had foreseen the tragedy of his decision. "No?" said the uncleWho took the news calmly. Might say, he was proud of his nephew.For three days the nephew told everyone he met. Like a celebration.He left the house each morning on foot, pale, and visibly shaky.But smiling as ever after talking to anyone who wanted to hear.On the fourth day, he took a bath before first light.He heaved a heavy sigh climbing into the hot water.He felt his wet skin, and the hair on his legs, tingle.It was a magnificent finale to his bright disclosure.Like a strong man from the circus who goes back to normal.

Conventional Hero

He was used to a dirty syntax.He fashioned his sentences in an unusual manner.He thought, I'm going to stop, I'm going toUse clauses only for brightness, verbs for simplicity,Nouns for saliency, prepositions for evidence.So that the future can find its way. The futureThat speaks to itself—"Merry Christmas," says a voiceFrom the future. "I don't think it'll be very merry,"Comes another voice. He wanted to be understood, is all.Whether proper or finicky, he didn't care.For example, he thought, I'm not going to write,"Instinct closes the barbarian's sister-brain."He thought, what's the point? Other than endingUp, completely and fully, ridiculous. In silenceHe stood alone in his house. His eyes met the blank wall.No, he said. As if on the wall there was a long message.

Plain Sight

In my sleep you're alive, explaining that you're hidingIn a far-off high-rise under a false name. You can see a mountainFrom your apartment windows. It rises like a hidden loveFor the stranger below pedaling a white bicycle over a slender bridge.You explain that you must stay in the apartment. It's a secret.The consequences of discovery—you say, "if the authorities find out . . ."—Are dire. "They must believe I am dead." Or something like that,The connection is bad.You are more loving in the dreamThan you were in life. Being dead, you have changedAnd refuse to look at me, your gaze turned elsewhereAs if you must look at things more important than old friends."Do the dead always look elsewhere?" "Yes, it's terrible,"You say, your eyes incomprehensibly still."I must return to my hiding place." It all feels illegal,Talking like this. Being dead, and not dead, and ceasing to love.