I’m Not a Poet, Ergo, I Am Real

by Lydia Cortes

Mi Autosicografia ... after Pessoa, Parra and Shailendra

I’m not a poet and so I am
real means royal in Spanish sometimes
I pretend I am
real like in royal pain
I fake even my pleasure
and can do it in 3 languages
I fake the pleasure of the pleasure
even in fantasy if not a poet what
can I fake fuck the pleasure the fuck
fake when and where?

Growing up in Brooklyn at home
I spoke Spanish at school a coarse crash
learn English pretend Americana
hoped most people would believe that
in Italy it was better being ... Porto Ricana,
allora? for that year I was some exotic
islander a place most knew
like me little about I learned
Italian so well most natives believed I was
just from some other place outside
Rome never quite sure who
I was so good at my act never
fake the pleasure pain now
they’ve become the same thing
like washing the dishes
it’ll always be me no one
else will even if I pray
kneeling beneath a grand crucifix and
Christ winks smiling at me I’ll ignore
Him make believe
I didn’t see some things
are too hard to fake like being a poet.