Sitting on the banks of the
Big Sur River—a person in
flannel and denim, named and
identified, albeit uncomfortably so.

What’s missing? Fauna. No fauna
except for the small brown scorpion
on the lapel of one’s jacket.

“I thought you were a Gemini.”
“I am.”
“Then why do you have a scorpion
embroidered on your jacket?”
“Where?!”
“There.”

Scorpion gingerly removed
with a manzanita twig, flanneled
and denimed returns to the
Big Sur and gets lost in the fluidity,
flowing through identities—
first this one, then that one.

What name shall we give ourselves?
Wanting to hide all of it: the Welsh, the
Confederate president, the dreary
commonness of it all.

In an attempt to sever past
associations, we commit posthumous
patricide, jettison “Davis” . . . for what?
What goes in that empty space on the
line at the bottom of all forms?

What rings true? And what does truth
mean anyway? Why not Lie? Such a small
phoneme—Lie. Why not let falsehood stand
in for a name?

And so, standing now, walking now, back
to the tent, newly knighted, self-named, thus:
A. Lie