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Speaking as the Male Poet
by Keetje Kuipers
I would like to write the fistfight poem, which I have never had
the pleasure of (I hit him once but he wouldn't hit me back)
or I might visit a prostitute (girl, woman, professional or not)
and then confess to you my shame (oh, to be the doer of the deed!)—
the death of a pet, a reference to Greek tragedy, a snowy drive in the dark,
a hospital room I wouldn't have to describe because just knowing
I am perhaps very bad and very broken and certainly very, very,
very smart would be enough. you might then want me to cook you
scrambled eggs in my boy-kitchen or simply ignore you from
behind the black rims of my not-really-necessary reading glasses
and I could say things to make you swoon, things like Codeine,
Oldsmobile, shortstop—words that were ordinary but now, coming
from my pen, my born in the suburbs of Boston pen, my son of trains
leaving every hour pen, my jeans tangled around my pale white calves pen
might have a new meaning that would make you think twice, as in,
why didn't I think of that? and they would be clever and sad
all at once, and wouldn't you want me, would want to wonder at me,
how I came to be transformed, and maybe who my mother is (lost child,
peter pan) and how she feels about the lies I'm telling you.
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