San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

Charles Harmon

DOING A DRIVE-BY ON MYSELF

Ignoring my Superego’s restraining order,
Dodging the Judge’s bench warrant for my arrest,
Ripping up a handful of citations and police reports
I decided to do a drive-by on myself.

Silently after midnight, beyond the lawn and the sidewalk,
I cruise by in the dilapidated jalopy of my Alter Ego,
My evil twin striving to sacrifice my better half
On the altar of my ambivalence and indecision
While my slumbering shell of a body
Rolls away on the ocean of my dreams.

The gunshots fail to awaken me,
They roar like the crash of breakers
On the rocky beach of my unconsciousness.
Only the continuous pounding on the door
By the police drags me from my sleep.
They’ve got a writ of habeas corpus
But I’m not giving up my body to nobody
Even if I already feel like a corpse.

The neighbors reported that the man in the car
With the machine gun looked a lot like me.
The officers actually believe that
I am the perpetrator who somehow got into the house,
And that I the victim had somehow escaped
Not only the bullets of my attempted murder
But also the shrapnel of their interrogation. 

They point out to me the bullet holes in the windows,
The slugs in the walls, the skid marks on the asphalt
Seen by the flashing lights atop the squad cars.
After signing some papers and agreeing to
Come into the station in the morning
Somehow I go back to sleep even while knowing
That the government has a claim of eminent domain
On the pain in my brain.
I feel like I’ve jumped bail and I’m just one step
And a short-shucked shotgun ahead of the
Bounty hunter, a crooked judge, and the hangman.

The old me is going to die anyway. Let the new me begin.
No more Mr. Nice Guy. Out with the old. In with the bold.