Celebrity Stalking

The celebrities are at it again. They keep

stalking me for poetry. Just the other day

George Clooney tried to deliver my pizza

so I could sign his broadside, Meryl Streep

crouched in my back yard with a chapbook,

Julia Roberts broke into my bathroom

to ask about meter, and Charlie Sheen left

twenty-six messages asking for [sic] sexstinas

written in the colloquial language of porn,

but these movie stars think they know the real me

behind the poetry because they read tabloids

in line at the super market that detail

the lurid private lives of poets who take lovers,

get caught without make-up, carry small dogs,

enjoy gay trysts, drink absinthe and own

many-chambered homes with deep-pile

cream carpets, secret rooms, and libraries

the size of Luxembourg. They couldn’t know

that I’m allergic to even numbers and no longer

fluent in filthy words. I’m feeling dogged

with anxiety on this spring nocturnal 

in the City of Angels, a hundred watt moon 

on the rise and the song birds playing music 

well past prime time like neighbors 

with no children. What we sacrifice 

for our art. We didn’t ask for this.