It sometimes amazes me
On a crisp sunny blue sky day
Like today,
That when a policeman passes me
On the sidewalk and says ‘hello,’
And makes me feel like a normal person,
That he hasn’t seen
Through me, and recognized
Me for the imposter I am.
But how could he know
When I dress myself in decent clothes,
My workplace just around the corner,
In this small town where everyone
Knows everyone,
That I don’t belong,
Terrified of being found out
At any moment?
And I am extremely grateful
He lets me go on my merry way
To make it through another workday
Though I’d rather be anywhere else than there
On a crisp sunny blue sky day
Like today.

—

Tom, a librarian living near NYC, has recently had poems and stories published in Litbreak and Tuck Magazine, poems accepted in the Ann Arbor Review and Wilderness House Literary Review, and a first novel due out in October from Black Rose Writing.