I Don't Think I Want to be Something

I’m not sure I want to

go to college

I don’t think I want to be something
when anything is such a fine word—

not that I don’t want to amount for something

at the chilly biting end

but just not in that way.

I don’t have the urge right now

But I want to be able to want to be

a sailor with many tattoos

                                       scars

                                       lovers

                                       and fake lovers

                                       and many many many filthy stories of all these

the next moment.

And how do I know I haven’t always wondered about the life

of a dog breeder

or a dog

Maybe I first need to find that monastery

that I won’t live in, and a very rich wife

and some arsenic.

Possibly I just want to live,

possibly as the old herbalist who helps the main character after he falls in the river

-just for a page to two-

maybe I really don’t want any of it

to be my problem at all.

It is probable that big game hunting

might be my calling, or maybe I do carry

a crazy cat lady inside

that I need to nurture myself into

a heavy-handed rabbi

or a shameless poet

or maybe a little bit of both, like Leonard

(Nah, forget that one

he’s just another college boy.)

but why would not my lot be

to claw at mice

or to pound tribal drums

or trample fine Aegean grapes bare foot and all and drink the wine and love the wife

or live as a herd of seahorses

with sad sad eyes

no, higher education

where they finally let you be this or that

might not be for me after all

I’m not at all ready to give up on

any of the things

I know I can’t be.