THE BULL RIDER

What if you only had

Eight seconds

To decide,

To make any decision

Worth making?

Eight seconds,

That’s all.

How would you ride

them bulls?

Would you

Stay on, get thrown,

Get trampled?

And how long 
would it take you

To mount 
the beast again?

THE CREATURE

If you ever catch Beauty

buck naked

in the woods,

don’t let her see you.

And for Christ sake

if you dare approach her

do not,

under any circumstance,

tell her how beautiful

she is.

She can’t hear it.

To her ears

her own beauty

in the mouth of another

is not flattery

or adoration,

but insult,

an offense

of the highest order,

that can’t be

remedied,

with apology,

or explanations

of good intention.

And no metaphor

will save the day.

When beauty

gets her ire up

she is the ugliest creature

you’ll ever see.

Don’t take her reaction

personally, though.

It has very little

to do with you.

Beauty’s own ambivalence

with being beautiful

is the issue.

It’s something

she’s never quite

learned to bear.

CUFFS

With every no

you slap

a pair

on me

when I already

have a set

that you put

there. I want

my hands back.

You have the key

to all the cuffs,

with another word

you can’t seem to say.

You know the word 

I mean,

don't you?

CHESS AGAINST CHECKERS

It is so easy sometimes

to believe I am in charge.

That I am a high-roller,

that I am a shark among sharks.

But this kind of thinking is

like being in a hall of mirrors,

which creates the illusion

that my face

is the only face

in the room.

I will actually believe that it is

until something happens

and I wake to see

that I am playing chess

while God, my partner,

is playing checkers.