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Interior with Mickey Mantle
The bones, they were brittle
and breaking. Drink, my friend, brought me back
to dusty Oklahoma, home of my dead father,
and someone I once called myself. I was drawing a blank.
Nothing left in storage, nothing but a banked expression
I painted on. I needed a liaison, someone to trigger
a little cheer, some exultation. I never knew,
what were wives for? What were people for?
What was I for? Does it matter how boring
baseball is, how boring I am, how we keep making
the same mistakes dressing them differently?
Aren’t there moments we realize
what little shits we are, minding our own business,
making the world a worse place by example,
preening and whining? When you’ve lived your life
as someone else’s dream of you? Statues,
that’s what we become,
with a few Easter lilies left behind
by those who celebrate their favorite stranger. 
Interior with Mickey Mantle
Self-Portrait with Michelangelo