The most difficult thing about poetry
is telling enough of the truth
so that they are confident you have four appendages
twenty fingers and toes, forty six chromosomes, and
an average temperature of 98.6
but that you are just as woeful at math
as they are

never telling enough of the truth that they might guess
you were the one who first added pinecones and papayas
together, subtracted all the extra seeds, and drank a sip
by moonlight, that it was an elixir of truth
and you choked on it,
that you understood algebra equations so well
but (so unlike the ones who will read this from the apex of success)
never really solved
life