Impostors

Unable to master
originality either
she told me
she didn't want to be a poem--
"Relegated", she meant
without saying it.

"So don't," I could have answered;
or, "Me neither."
The two-syllable replies
are innumerable
in the shower
months later
with a cocktail nested
in the soap dish.

Instead
I've represented us
as the mockingbirds
we are
mimicking others
and better versions of ourselves
with virtuous intentions
bound to slaughter strangers
while mothers weep in evening
for the sin of repetition.



Currently reading:
"Spoon River Poetry Review" 41.1 (Summer 2016).