If I Could Be Me Again

If I could be me again

I’d be Errol Flynn

 

swashbuckling through life

as unrepentant as nightfall

 

or a sail catching wind.

I’d be as hard as the glint

 

in Randolph Scott’s eye

before the trigger gets pulled

 

or as worldly (and kind) as Paladin

when he gives you his hand.

 

I would be as much my own as

a bed in the morning

 

after sleeping in it

or the buttoned down Amishman

 

sitting on a bench in the

Springfield Amtrak station

 

calmly peeling an orange

with a spoon.

 

 

 

D.G. Geis lives in Houston, Texas. Most recently his poetry has appeared in Fjords, Poetry Scotland (Open Mouse), Memoryhouse, Sugar House, The Hartskill Review, Permafrost, and The Naugatuck Review. He was a finalist for both the New Alchemy (University of Alaska) and Fish Prizes (Ireland). His first collection Mockumentary will be published this January by Tupelo Press (Leapfolio).