Loser Bait

Some of us

are chum.

Some of us

are the come-hither

honeycomb

gleamy in the middle

of the trap’s busted smile.

Though I let myself a little

off this hook, petard

by which I flail,

and fancy myself more

flattered — 

no ugly worm!

Humor me

as hapless nymph,

straight outta Bullfinch, minding

my own beeswax,

gamboling, or picking flowers

(say daffodils),

doing that unspecified stuff

nymphs do

with their hours,

until spied by a layabout youth,

or rapey God

who leaps unerring, staglike,

quicker than smoke, to the wrong idea.

Or maybe

the right?

For didn’t I supply

the tippy box, too?

Notch the stick on which

to prop it?

Didn’t I fumble the clove hitch

for the rope?

Leave the trip lying obvious

in the tall, buggy grass?

Ever it was.

Duh.

Be the mat,

and the left foot finds you welcome.

Though there’s always a subject, a him

or herself. But to name it

calls it down, like Betelgeuse,

or the IRS.

It must be swell

to have both deed and

the entitlement, for leaners who hold our lien,

consumers who consume like

red tide ripping through a coastal lake?

Who find themselves so very well

when gazing in that kiddie pool, or any

skinny inch of water.

That guy, remember? How tell this tale

without him? A story

so hoary, his name’s Pre-Greek.

What brought Narcissus down?

A spotty case

of the disdains, I think,

a one-man performance

where the actor hates his audience.