RECONSTRUCTED

Someday a student of the obscure
May undertake my resurrection
The evidence will be scattered
And resist interpretation
But, with effort, the outlines
Of my early upbringing
May, at least, be made clear
"His father -- ninth child of a girl
Who made cigarettes and a tailor
Who could leap over garages --
Sometimes served as a member
Of God's entourage. His mother –

Daughter of a woman slain
By ice and a watchmaker --
Was short and fierce and funny.
She left him with a tendency
To quote poetry with enthusiasm
And startling inaccuracy.
He had a brother who delighted
In giving strange and useless gifts.
There are rumors of an invisible sister;
She never appears in his poems.
In high school, he lived two lives
Neither of them of much interest."