Heavy handed and overly sentimental
I cringe at my own words,
and, I’ll admit, some of yours.

I love the idea, but struggle with the form
If only I’d not notice what made it to the page

“Write with blinders on,” she told me.
Just before she told me she couldn’t help me,
that my demons were on steroids
which in fact did not help me…at all.
Is it too late to cancel th echeck?
Or to get back the $5
I gave to the turbaned and bejeweled woman at the County Fair back in ’85
the one who took my hand, held it in hers,
turned it short of over
while nodding her head and making that contemplative noise people make when they’re about to share some just found answer to a question you adked, or didn’t but they thought you’d want to know

Maybe it’s not such a good idea for anyone to tell us what’s coming next,
or just before they do, maybe we need one last to change our minds and choose not to hear whatever it is they think they know or think they ought to tell us – to warn us, or inspire us, or just to get us to come back with another fist of green and more questions with answers we’re probably best off not to know.

What is this noise in the woods behind me
that make the hairs on my neck reach for their rifles
knowing it’s in their best interest to protect me.

And how I can keep writing about anything other than Goldilocks
while I wonder what it is.
It’s a good think I don’t have to look at the keyboard
how hard that would be – what with the darkness and the smoke and my involuntary oscillation of my head like the search lights on the prison roof.

But I was asking you whether you thought it best not to know what’s coming next
and now that I mentioned the bear alert
I can’t help but wonder whether she saw a light brown muzzle in my hand
at the tail end of the long lonely life.