If you happen to have been looking out your window
around eleven twenty last night,
perhaps because you haven’t yet
gotten over your relationship with Pall Mall
despite what you’ve claimed to your room-mate,
then you might have noticed
a naked man running up and down the avenue
who might have had
the faintest resemblance to me.

I can imagine how
you might jump to some certain conclusions,
had you seen such a figure
near the Witching Hour yesterday,
but I would like
at this time
to take the opportunity
to remind you
how the simplest explanation
is not always the likeliest
and that jumping to conclusions
is almost definitely
what got the cat killed.

In any case
I feel it’s incumbent upon me
to mention
that I was in phone contact
with your room-mate
somewhere around that time
and that’s how I know
you might have wondered
if it was I
circling your neighborhood
so close to midnight.
But I was calling your room-mate
from very very far away
and was nowhere near
the scene of the non-crime.

And it’s not a crime to be naked
on the street
in the middle of the night,
is it?
I mean, what possible charge – oh.
Well, regardless…

I was not anywhere
even in the vicinity
of your window,
unclothed,
trying to figure out
if your little room-mate
was cheating on me
with any of the guys
from that band

or any other.
I can’t put together
any reason
why you’d assume it was me.

And even if it was
don’t you think
there might be
a very
very very
veryveryvery good explanation
for what went down?

Yes, I’ll be happy
to share an explanation
any minute now.