I got caught
the other day
by one of the myriad multitude
that are my millions of fans.
This one
had a bone perfectly ripe for the picking:
After yet another brilliantly successful performance,
he approached,
and called me a liar
or a hypocrite
or maybe just said I was wrong
(I wasn’t listening that close).

Apparently
one of my works,
a glorious piece regarding gentrification and nostalgia,
referred to a particular pizza place
in glowing terms
but he knew
as well as I did
that the place sucked.

“When I told you about Nino’s closing,”
he accused,
“You said, and I quote,
‘So what? That place’s lame.'”
“Was the place really called Nino’s?” I asked.
“You know it was.”

So I would like to go on record, now,
random fan whose identity I am far too important to recall
(but was possibly named Mike Shoykhet),
and admit that,
yes, you got me.
You caught me
saying something in my work of art
that was not entirely true
and not even my opinion
but was stated simply to serve the purposes of the piece.
You have found me out.

You have uncovered the dark secret:
that I may say something
in my creative ventures
that is not always one thousand percent
journalistically verifiable.
Alert the media
(that is not my poetry blog)
of my heinous crime.
Let me suffer slings and stones
from a horrified public.

Go off, random-but-theoretical-Michael,
and report my misdeeds.
Inform any and all of my inaccuracy.
I deserve whatever you can have done
for I have erred
and must be punished.

Oh, and also:
fuck you, Mike.