Early Interviews

In those days I gathered misfits. None
         of them matched me or one another
                      but they were messages from the mosaic

of possibility, pieces of a soul that might
        solder itself whole if we talked enough
                     of the talk. You can be anyone you want

walking down the street, a twelfth-grader,
         Bobbi, said on the way home from school
                     when I was near the end of freshman year

and she was right about that, a strange fish
         in psychedelic polyester bobbing among
                     skinny skirts and faded jeans just before

disappearing down a decade we entered
         in fits and starts, a gang of contradictions
                     adding up to everyone except ourselves.