Most of Us
The starlet and her “intimate device.” The aging
Oscar winner raided at his “house of pain.”
—We need our weekly dose of celebrity scandal,
we whose insides are immeasurably larger
than our skins. We need a second place
to hold the extra “us” of us.
A god can provide it, a mythic hero suffices.
And yet, effective enough for most of us, is
the story of someone else, of anybody else, if necessary
of even the neighbors across the street:
because they’re like you but are not you, they’re
an isotope of you. The truly interesting halves
of Hercules and Jesus are everyday people.
"Most of Us" from Everyday People by Albert Goldbarth. Copyright © 2012 by Albert Goldbarth. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.