Unlikely Mike
These are poems about unlikely heroes and anti-heroes ...
Unlikely Mike
by Michael R. Burch
I married someone else’s fantasy;
she admired me despite my mutilations.
I loved her for her heart’s sake, and for mine.
I hid my face and changed its connotations.
And in the dark I danced—slight, Chaplinesque—
a metaphor myself. How could they know,
the undiscerning ones, that in the glow
of spotlights, sometimes love becomes burlesque?
Disfigured to my soul, I could not lose
or choose or name myself; I came to be
