Person of Interest - Jan 22 2023

 

Person of Interest

Jan 22 2023

A person of interest

according to the police report.

But interesting?

Worth listening to?

Amusing?   …entertaining?    …original?

I always thought

if I could at least be that;

if not handy

good looking

or athletically gifted,

then at minimum

not boring to listen to.

A welcome guest

good conversationalist.

But, of course, the law has something else in mind.

Interesting

in the way we're perversely attracted

to con men and drug lords

and the cleverly larcenous.

To elaborate heists

and daring crimes,

glamorous outlaws

like Bonnie and Clyde.

To the lifer

on the lam from Alcatraz

who's still at large.

Except here, the object of interest

is a witness

with something to hide,

some petty criminal

too dumb to lie.

A suspect

they want to keep thinking

is not in their sights.

Of interest

but hardly interesting.

The ambiguity and understatement of this expression never fails to amuse me. So I finally decided to play around with it, and this is the result.