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Named by Stephen Dunn
He'd spent his life trying to control the names people gave him; oh the unfair and the accurate equally hurt.
Just recently he'd been a son-of-a-bitch and sweetheart in the same day, and once again knew what antonyms
love and control are, and how comforting it must be to have a business card - Manager, Specialist - and believe what it says.
Who, in fact, didn't want his most useful name to enter with him, when he entered a room, who didn't want to be
that kind of lie? A man who was a sweetheart and a son-of-a-bitch was also more or less every name
he'd ever been called, and when you die, he thought, that's when it happens, you're collected forever into a few small words.
But never to have been outrageous or exquisite, no grand mistake so utterly yours it causes whispers
in the peripheries of your presence - that was his fear. "Reckless"; he wouldn't object to such a name
if it came from the right voice with the right amount of reverence. Someone nearby, of course, certain to add "fool."
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