That’s Not Me

Who you see in that picture is not me

He’s some guy I found up North
and hired to be Shawn Misener

He only cost me a week a year
at this beautiful Lake Superior timeshare

***

Sometimes people recognize him
saying:
hey, you’re that writer from Lansing
or Flint or something

The guy who wrote that story
where the Cookie Monster screws this dude’s wife

To which the fake Shawn replies:
yeah, that’s me all right
but you better stay away from me
‘cause I’m a pothead and I’ve never been paid for writing-
not one single damn penny

***

But here’s where it gets surreal:
apparently I’ve been hired to be me as well

Maybe I’ve been reading too much Phil Dick
but I’m beginning to worry that the me who hired the me you see
isn’t me at all

It could be that the me you see
created the me you don’t see

Or, even better:
the me you see (or the me you don’t see)
is an android designed write words
and be a face on a (web)page
for mysterious covert reasons

I (he) could be anything

A creature from a paradimension
with eyes made of sweetgrass and salted butter
toting a skyscraper backpack full of scrabble tiles

The pissed off ghost of David Foster Wallace
shot back in time
to simplify his writing a bit
and recapture the American dream

Or anything else imaginable

But I’m sure the guy you see in the picture isn’t me
(him)