You gotta keep movin’, like a shark

or you die. So says Alvy. You know,

Alvy in Annie Hall Alvy. I sip my life lessons

from the movies, I do. Might as well.

 

“You wanna talk about my mother?”

yeah, what of it? I got my issues with

her too. Take the salve, sieve it, and

forgettabout it. Because I’m singing in

the rain. Oh, what a wonderful feeling

I’m happy again…oh, la la, and…la-de-dah?

 

My Technicolor life beaded down

in popcorn-sized chunks. Too bad the

butter is fake, too bad the sentiment

is overwrought, too bad the genuine

is a lucky rewrite.

Rewind, old school.

 

Reel the real. La-de-dah

my path winds but that’s no surprise

it cuts up every step of the boots I wear

on account of the bugs and snakes

on patchwork path, no grass.

 

Plants prehistoric high

bamboo cathedral midway

but I skip it, eager to arrive

at the hidden unscathed.

 

The source of the town’s envy

with tin strips to hide the holes on

the wooden boards,

but few know about that.

 

Centuries-old wood,

the pretense to aristocracy

my own Grey Gardens.

 

Reel the real. La-de-dah

 

And the path

siphons, spitting me out

onto the stairway –

of stone, a long-stemmed tulip

because I can be Audrey

in Breakfast at Tiffany’s

and usually don’t have

to even leave the house for that.

 

But then there are the viewers,

neighbors and whatnot

watching me enter the wrought-iron gate

heavy and chained.

 

But to them it’s all so fascinating

that I’m the one with the key.

 

Reel the real. La-de-dah.

 

Stories about me abound. I’ve

reeled them in with the mystery

that sticks to the diegetic.

 

Reel the real. La-de-dah.

 

Foliage has its own soundtrack,

lulling the rats that scratch

underwood. But the movies,

the movies are perfect, ‘cause

everything turns into poetry

from a distance. My mother?

Forgettabout it.