I myself, seeing it finally written on the page,
was amazed at the bloody juices I required and pumped
to permit me to pretend I found it natural.
To be more honest than feels well, I haven’t yet
accepted it. May not ever, though I’ll never tell.
After all, it is my name—or part of it—
the first two parts that ever fell upon the
first certificate. These two preceding all the others,
even maiden’s last, which I’m dead set against;
it was the source of all my traumata in childhood,
representing as it did and ever shall amen
their angry god and his permitted prejudice.
So I have taken only my true first and middle names,
leaving that last family name to heaven,
where it’s well-known, can run for office,
persecute, and leave me alone.
How plainly honest can one get?
Yet, there’s something not quite right in it.
After my originals, there comes that little rain of names
on a larger storm of papers blowing over such a space
of time the little mind to whom the maiden’s names
   belonged