An American In Hollywood

n American in Hollywood
By Frank Bidart

December 10, 2007
After you were bitten by a wolf and transformed
into a monster who feeds on other human beings

each full moon and who, therefore, in disgust

wants to die, you think The desire to die is not
feeling suicidal. It abjures mere action. You have

wanted to die since the moment you were born.

Crazy narratives—that lend what is merely
in you, and therefore soon-to-be-repeated,

the fleeting illusion of logic and cause.

You think Those alive there, in the glowing rectangle,
lead our true lives! They have not, as we have been

forced to here, cut off their arms and legs.

There, you dance as well as Fred Astaire,
though here, inexplicably, you cannot.

Sewer. Still black water

above whose mirror
you bend your face. Font.