The Pitch

The Pitch

Just imagine 

quitting your job

and going out on a limb,

looking out 

to every possible occupation you could settle in,

picking one

and laboring hard enough 

to forget about the loss of your time:

days, nights, and weekends;

then you become your own boss,

and saving, like really saving,

as much money as it takes to own the place,

and when you’ve barely moved in the corner office 

a guy walks in saying,

“You’ve been doing it wrong,

but that’s ok, because boy

do I have the solution for you.”

It’s not necessarily

a hypothetical situation,

I can’t fictionalize the story 

when just two months ago

the bare knuckles knocking

on the hardwood door

were mine

and the man standing there 

asking for just five minutes of your time 

was me.

The dictionary defines an Empath 

as a person with the paranormal ability

to define and or apprehend 

the emotional state of an another,

in action

the person is said

to be practicing empathy,

a capacity to understand or feel

what another person 

(such as the business owner) is thinking, 

but that’s

just another definition

and the problem with those

is that 

they all come in the past tense,

Merriam-

(were you pretty?)

Webster

(sounds like a poindexter),

I wonder if you two 

ever thought 

to realize

that the world outside of your book 

defines things 

by doing.

It was two steps in

when I met 

the gatekeeper,

“What is it you’re doing?” 

“I’m here to offer you something.”

“Oh,” he said. “Come right in.”

As if 

an explanation

or an experience 

is ever that simple,

to take an idea

out of your head

is to

give birth to it

through your mouth,

nurse it

with your own two hands,

sleep with it

next to you in bed,

it’s falling in love with the unreal

until that becomes surreal,

which then ,

might,

possibly,

with enough effort and providence,

one day

become real, real.

Entering the office door

and before it is closed

and we sat down

I looked around 

for a little bait 

to place on my hook.

Pictures of him,

a wife and kids,

a boat,

skees, 

and a picnic by some trees;

he sneezed, “Excuse me.”

I handed him a tissue and asked,

“When was the last time 

you looked over a cliff?”

Puzzled,

but like an archaeologist 

who had seen that scene before 

said, “Go on.”

“I mean,” I said. “You’ve got all this,

but do you remember 

what it was like 

on the way here?”

His feet came up 

to the corner of his desk

and his hands lifted off his chest

and held the back of his head.

“It felt like being alive.”