Tell me your stories and we don't have 
to ever write them down--

Tell me your life story like the
tall tales of children.
If you wanted to be the boy
who won the relay race in second grade
I would love to hear you become that
even if you only got third
and a frayed green ribbon that you keep
in the back of your desk drawer
between the books that
you had wanted to read this semester.
Tell me you were once magic.
Tell no one understood but your brother.
Tell me your bed room was haunted
even if you know it was mice in the walls
or the pipes in the old house
cracking like shoulder bones--
Did you plant red delicious apple trees
like the periods of so many poems
and perhaps?
Did you ever pull blue oxs on leashes 
in the park--?
Did you learn to tie shoe laces
from licorice rope?
I want to know about the girl
who spoke seven languages--
each that she made herself.
I want to know the boy who made
his desk into a time machine
to go back to before he broke
the teacher's vase. 

When I learned about tall tales
in elementary school Mrs. Kenney
said they were lies-- but I
think they're a more
pure reflection of a truth
that we all want-- I don't want
to live a history-- I want to
live a tall tale of lovers
and saber tooth lions
with ghosts in the hallways
who leave hand prints
on the window in the spring that only
you and your brother saw.