The quick zigzag of the colonel,
for example, who took pictures of himself
in his victims' lingerie.
I was mesmerized by such dioramas,
having fallen in love with one once
a long time ago,
and can still picture the vermillion border,
the lips and hands that debouched right into me
who must have wanted to be misled.
Now my eyebrow is perpetually raised,
I can't bring it down.
I changed lovers,
changed the lock on my front door,
locked the car where there were no signs
of intrusion other than my missing clothes
and the passenger door left open
on the city street where I'd parked.
Only he and I had the key,
which is lost now
and cannot be duplicated/
Do not resuscitate, I say to my mind.
Do not duplicate.
Dupe, we say as verb and noun.
Sounds like what it is, what I am—
I hope the city where this happened
has filed the truth somewhere in its archives.
Who'll tell the other stories?
Not I, say the lampposts.
Not I, say the dogs.
Not I, says the I
who's scanned everything
and scanned the scans onto memory cards
and locked the memory cards in a safety-deposit box.
I did it late at night
as if I were a criminal
and maybe I was, and am.
Often I dreamed he dismembered someone,
hid her in the walls,
and in these dreams I was participant and observer
as I am again now, dreaming of writing this.
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