what am i offered for this heart and all it loves?
i'll have your offers and consider them truthfully
should I fear you? are you dangerous?
someday i may regret this query (which i've never used
but imagine posing with a wry sincerity)---
my stranger, quick as i am,
will see me coming and that's all, folks
my earliest memory of a lack of standing
came as i walked down my street
at 9, just moved
from the country, the boys who would be my friends
trying me or so i thought
because as i walked
i fired arrows like the king's own archer
to let them know i wasn't someone
they could push around,
not this new kid in town
years later, out of college a little soon,
asked why i'd returned by a friend's dad whose head
bent to the side which made him wry,
i said the way i carried that bow everywhere
i didn't know, but i couldn't explain my presence there
put your offers by the door, stuff them down it's okay
i can't promise anything but i listen well
though my mother'd give me an argument there
but what're you gonna do?
pull down on your mother?