He was a famous person, or is a famous person,
				depending on how one measures
	such things:
			fame, evil, light, dreams.
		We still read Don Quixote because it’s exciting
and was written by a famous person,
and so we like to know about the author’s life,
			like was he captured by pirates	yes
		did he drive on the LA Freeway
	in a white Bronco with his passport			no
					how did he survive his time
		as a slave to the Moors	          both badly and well
			 and was he shot in Dallas or a theater
	or on a DC street or in his own bed
		by a serial killer now begging to die		none of these
He was a spy with famous friends,
he wrote a famous book,
he fought in a famous war.
he knew an infamous drag queen,		And if the paparazzi
			followed him, or he drank too much
		in public or slept around too much in private,
							if those windmills were
					symbols to him or nothing at all,
							we have no talk show to address
			our need to know, our right
				as people to climb onto his donkey
					or become his ghost and smell his hair,
measure his breathing, his every move in fame.			

Christine Delea