The Wind Howls Like a Hammer

That's a line from a Bob Dylan song, which has little if anything to do with this poem.

Spotlight

I want to go back in time and be interviewed by Dick Cavett or David Frost. They would be their charming and impish selves and I would expound upon the pressing need for weed control in southeast Colorado or the plight of the blue whale or the mid-term elections. I would be sincere, compassionate, handsome.

I want to be interviewed on public television. Charlayne Hunter-Gault could look me in the eye and ask pointed questions about the middle east peace process or good restaurants in Sao Paulo or the state of Italian opera. I will be smooth, clever, confident.

I want to be the sole eyewitness when the local TV reporter runs breathlessly up and asks for my first-hand account. I’ll tell her about the getaway car and rain and sirens or about the daring rooftop rescue or the tense hostage negotiations. I will be accurate, erudite, unruffled.

I want to testify at a high-profile trial and be questioned by high-powered attorneys. I’ll awe the courtroom with riveting details about my boss’s indiscretions. I’ll single-handedly expose the corporate corruption, intrigue, and greed. I will be steely-eyed and relentless.

America will not be able to get enough of me.

And then I will disappear like Butch Cassidy into the Andes or the south Pacific or the Georgia swamps.

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