Everybody Wants to be David

Nobody wants to be Goliath, with his too-long arms
deceptively menacing, dangling
from his shoulders,
his shield too long, unbalanced
by a brass lion's head plaque too far above center, behind which
his hand grasps
a leather strap.

Goliath
of the fifty wives,
hundreds of children spitting up, shitting,
and looking just like him -- little warnings of the future.

Goliath with his seat at the king's table
where he sups every night of the world,
has to be there --
well dressed and full of jokes even when he's sick,
got bad news from a brother
whose problems he's expected to fix,
even when he's had a fight with his best friend.

Goliath, thick of leg and powerfully roped neck, brain
so close to his pounding heart it rebels
against his attention, refuses
to follow his eyes, his concentration flees
from the test of a gnat at his ear, his stomach glowers, stirring
in acid and the bones of meals swallowed years ago
still not digested.

Then there is David, clean
out of his mother's womb,
still smelling of milk and the musk of hillside grasses
newly grown. The future clings to his heels.
Each new audience knows the outcome.

Davids
don't wear green streak makeup
or oil their hair.

Davids have taped marks on the boards
so they know just where
they are to stare down blindness beyond the footlights
then seal the deal with God.

Goliaths practice falling hard,
the stage planks must thunder with their undoing,
their heads fallen toward the backdrop to hide the mess
as David uses his dagger, launches a rubber mask
by the black, stringy hair.

Goliaths are hoary actors, decades
of performances behind their name in the program, but who reads them?

Davids are kids from the college steps,
who will be David one spring then graduate,
having walked in on a lark following some girl
or a dare, just happened to be the best looking thing
the director has seen
walk his way in months.

David is the best part.
Sound and Lights know this, set directors,
sigh in the wings with dressers. Everyone
wants to be David
not just once
but forever, pulling on Youth as a garment that never wears out,
an identity even more
than eye color or name -

knowing that truth and action
will never be more plain than when playing hero,
and the opportunity
to play Opportunity is a rare
found thing.