I am an obscure french font
heavily serifed with rapid ascender

I have a specific and particularly daring wish for my grande and grande
      fifteens and fifteens
birthday--To possess the greatest body ever witnessed by humankind. 
 A physique that will bring even its harshest opponents to their collective knees. 
 A profile that radiates a promise of unparallelled satisfaction and quietude
      an exhibit in the museum of apparent wisdom

Sadly, that body belonged to Zeami Motikoyo, 
a playwright of great reknown in the middle of the 14th century.  
(I picked this up at a dinner party last summer, 
having no idea how dearly I would need the information 8 months later.)  
Subsequent dinner parties in conjunction with subsequent hobbing, nobbing, and
 eavesdropping provided me with more information about
 the strapping Nihongo buck I wished to imitate.  
Although the son of an already famous playwright, 
Zeami is considered the Father of Noh theater--a very real, 
albeit nominal, 
slight on kawaiso papa san.   
Zeami was born in 1363, 
which makes my task easier,
 as it is generally easier to acquire something that already exists, 
 and died in 1443, 
which does not. 
 
So. so I must, 
if I wish to have it,
 contact my spiritualist and advisor 
(although he prefers the title Ectoplamiste en Residence,)
Monsieur LeFaut. (aka PooPoo LeMerde 
aka John the Naptist of Nantes 
aka He whose name shall remain unspoken until uttered 
        at a fashionable boutique of his preference 
aka Charles the Mad of Charleston)

When another of my friends has fallen
and despite the best efforts of all involved passed beneath
the tightly sprung surface of what was never the case
We will speak of him for an hour or so,
politely,
until he never was.
Then we will serve the salad.
I expect radicchio and no
less than Weapons Grade Romaine
    (iceberg having been repelled a the gates) and a tart,
authoritative blend of oil, balsamic vinegar
and various covert ingredients falling under the rubric 
"Southwestern" 
though most will 
       (truth be told)
be shipped in from Florida, Germany, and Mexico
(Playa del Carmen--home of Chipotle del Diabla)

I am a volume of Voltaire's personal notes
and a book of knots he consulted while exploring the practical details of strangling 
the last lawyer on the entrails of the last priest
beside me is a pamphlet he designed (with no intention of printing)
categorizing the tensile characteristics of internal organs
as functions of diet, exercise, and sleeping habits

I am also a 19th century middleweight struggling to understand
 a volume of Voltaire's personal notes
turning the pages and wondering why my sister gave me this book
this difficult and terrible book
to struggle to understand
we haven't spoken since our father disowned me for my choice
 of weight class, feeling my career would be better served by 
a higher bracket, given my speed and power.

My father made charts detailing various strengths of different punches 
as functions of foot placement, hip rotation, and fatigue level.
I have not seen these charts
but I am told by my trainers that they reflect a philosopher's sensibility 
and the eye of a portrait artist--
the leading edge of physiological thought.
My father is oddly devoted to the condition and performance of his disowned son.

What does it mean when Voltaire says, 
here in the margins of page 3
or 13, I can't tell whether he includes illustrations
in his numbering scheme
where he traces the outline of a pair of coupled 
equations relating probablities of escape for priest/lawyer pairs
from various knots as functions of
fear, desire for release and blood loss
as it applies to capacity for rational thought

"Elle etait l'ete'.  Elle n'est pas ici."

What does he mean? Does it apply
to the accompanying charcoal sketch of a young woman quietly judging
her male companion who insists on behaving like an animal
despite her repeated and painfully sustained efforts
to civilize him?
  
Is this in French?
I don't speak French.

I am one of three lion cubs born before dawn
 a safe distance from water, and
under sufficient cover
My mother, an aging mare
    (this is what we call her)
is desparate for males.  This may be
her last chance
to impress my father, a severe and powerful old bull
    (which is what we call him)
She is becoming slowly aware that none of us are moving
or breathing, for that matter
Better she hide us than try to defend us from the
severe and powerful old bull, since nothing
is still better than a malfunctioning half-something

When my father comes, my brother and sister
are gone and he breathes his iron red breath on 
the only cub he sees
we never move, or breathe, until we smell 
the old bull's breath.
My mother, an aging mare, forgets this.

I am not a man.
 I am a machine's dream of a man.