Life up to now had been no mistake,
getting out of East Tupelo,
out of the sharecropper’s shack.
Fame was nice.
But this is America,
where you keep redeeming yourself
by leaving the past behind.
It wasn’t him in the coffin; anyone could tell
it was a wax dummy. The hair was coming loose,
nose too pug.
How many times had he disappeared
like a magician?
He used to get the body shaking,
the left leg wiggling,
then half-sneer, turn away
from the audience as if he were kidding,
as if he were shaking them off.
We saw how it was done.
You had to make up the moves every day
of your life, start over so many times
you were obvious,
completely American, almost invisible,
so you could leave again,
carry yourself out to the garden
and see what came up next.