Be who you are


                     (Paul Nelson and the question of poetic veracity)

What if I dissimulated?

What if those sheets Lynne Guillot hung up were not the reported ones?

What if that backyard grew in me, that metal clothes line, the clothes pins,
which could be wood without or with metal spring, or plastic?

What if Nancy of the green stockings had actually called me up
to say not a word into that open telephone