Once, I wanted to be Hemingway.
But so did Hemingway. That act is hard-
dumb facts decked out as art, and anyway,
who gets what they want? And then who cares?
What matters when the water at your feet
is running out without you? I grew my beard
and bought a little boat on credit, named
it after myself and painted all of it blue,
then put us out to sea. And when it's calm
and when the sun is out, we disappear.
We're gone. What else was I supposed to do?



About this poem
"Ernest Hemingway's masculinity-practiced and somewhat desperate-was just as artful and twice as revealing as his writing. It was all posture and performance, and I sympathize with that self-consciousness, that manufactured bravado."
-Patrick Ryan Frank

About Patrick Ryan Frank
Patrick Ryan Frank is the author of "The Opposite of People" (Four Way Books, 2015). He lives in Austin, Texas.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2015 Patrick Ryan Frank. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate