Persona Non Au Gratin

My Dear Wife,

obviously you mistake for me
the speaker (or "persona") of my poem
about some pitiful husband (a husband
referred to as "I" and "me
purely for purposes of dramatic
immediacy) who dwells on his
grotesque memories of acne'd and hackneyed
and desperately horny adolescence.

Clearly you weren't listening that day
in Freshman English when the teacher
explained all this. If you think
every "I" in literature (this, by the way,
is literature) can be equated to the author,
you probably believe in Santa
and that when a TV personage
invites "you" to enjoy the show,
he is referring specifically to you.

By the way, this, too, is a persona,
you stupid, illiterate bitch, and it's
addressing a persona. It's certainly not
ME talking to YOU, not the REAL you, if you
know what I mean, and you know who I mean
when I say you, referring, of course,
to the you who knows what I mean --
because I would NEVER talk to you
this way,
Dear.

Dean Blehert