Photo by Mantas Hesthaven on Unsplash
Watch enough BBC television,
and you begin to question your sanity:
I know this guy, he’s a murderer! No, wait,
he’s a cop! No, now he’s a priest! How could they
let him be a cop and a priest after he killed
all those people in that quaint seaside village?
You start to notice the same phenomenon
in real life. It’s harmless enough—
the new postal carrier looks like the old
grocery store clerk, minus the apron and plus
a blue hat and pants. The shaggy, bearded
man hunched at the dock once played
a broad-shouldered football star
in an after-school special, right before
he went off to war in that acclaimed miniseries.
Even your parents are in on the game.
You thought you knew them so well:
they fought; they made up. Your childhood
was a sit-com. Now, some days you barely
recognize them. Your mother dyes her hair
red, goes back to school and becomes
an accountant. They split up,
and your father offers you scotch
in his girlfriend’s Ft. Lauderdale condo.
When you confront them, they shrug.
What do you want from us? We were young.
We took the roles we could get.
This shape-shifting is insidious. Shopping
at the Goodwill in your white t-shirt
and dark jeans, a lacy green dress
from an Edwardian love story calls
to you, and, for two dollars, how can you afford
not to try it on? You pull the dress down over
your clothes, then catch your reflection
staring at you from the mirror. Her eyes are wide,
and there’s something twitchy about her mouth.
Her hair has come loose from its ponytail,
and flares out above her shoulders, tamed
by the beveled edges of the glass.
You back into a dark-haired man
with a caramel-colored suit jacket slung
over his shoulder. He reminds you of a skinny boy
in a striped shirt from two rows over
in high school Calculus. But, really, he could be anyone,
from any time or place—you won’t know what
scene you’re in until he looks you in the eye
and offers the opening lines. But the electricity
you feel when he offers his hand tells you,
no matter the plot, you'll be hooked
for the whole season, waiting week
after week for a new episode
to wash over you, to drag you under.
Gwen Hart teaches writing at Montana State University Northern. She is a regular presenter at the Popular Culture Association Conference. Her second poetry collection, The Empress of Kisses, won the X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize from Texas Review Press.