TRIAL

TRIAL

thought you
would love me
if I were
brave as Achilles

had a body like
Apollo’s
not a blemish
not a scar

if I could
sing like Sting,
Robert Plant or
Pavoratti

or riff
like Django or
Jimi Hendrix
on the guitar

if I could speak
French faultlessly,
seductively, and
then write
like Proust
or Rimbaud

had the intellect of
Derrida and
the wit
of Oscar Wilde

and all this childhood trauma
that I carry with me
this toxic
family stuff
inside

you would love me
once I found
the instant
total cure for it

or battling and failing
to shake it, negate it,
integrate it
shape it
   to true loving ends

you
would love me
for how hard I tried