Last night
I
wrote myself a hero.
My
pen
dropped
forty pounds from my body,
re-grew
the hair on my head.
I
wrote myself
a
stunning Irish girlfriend
and
fat bank account;
artistic
friends
and
a mercenary’s history.
My
sloppy penmanship
did
little to diminish my power
as
Imam of Chinatown ,
Grand-Poobah
of the Masons,
Patriarch
of Violent Fiction, and
Samurai
of Ozone Park
So
much better than the poor soul
who
fell asleep on the A-Train,
a
hopeful dreamer there
to
take my place-
alone,
out of money,
a
dead ringer for the poet.
