Tonight's Poet Corner: The Raconteur

The Raconteur
by Belinda Roddie

If I gave you my story, would you
wrap it up in brown paper, or tuck
it under your bed for safekeeping
until it collected dust? Would you

stick it in the bottom drawer, deep
where the monsters can feed on it,
teeth blackening from the trauma
typed out in military text? If I read

it out loud to you, would you turn
your music up so that the bass hid
every important consonant, so that
all you heard was a slurred aria

you could only pretend to understand?
You see, I've written many stories before,
but this one is specifically mine. It's got
weathered pages and short chapters and

sagas with run-on sentences and
sloppy grammar. It has an unreliable
narrator and subplots that never get
resolved, and we haven't quite reached

the climax yet. But if I gave you my
story - if I let you leave your fingerprints
on its weary, wrinkled face, press your lips
to its spine, listen to the crinkling paper
like it's a natural breeze outside - would

you keep reading so we can revisit every
section that held meaning to us? And, if
you have the time, would you be willing
to write its denouement with me?