April 15
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	sigman byrd
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	CONSPIRACY THEORY
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	In an age of miracles, perhaps Jesus and his pals stocked a cave with extra fish and loaves so when the starving multitude appeared they could coax faith along. And maybe what got multiplied instead was the illusion of faith in which someone would always be excluded, while the one robed in innuendo and rumor's purple logic became the carrier of dreams. You know who I mean: the golden-haired boy in fourth grade who grinned when you realized your lunch money was gone forever; and years later, the one instead of you who won the contract or the gorgeous girl because of some imagined sleight of hand. Is it fear of a ghoulish monster under the bed that makes you want to believe in his ascendancy, the sharpshooter, for example, perched in the book depository window and his comrade on the grassy knoll who sees in the crosshairs how the world could be a better place? Or is it an unquenchable need for certainty, a guarantee, a great chain of being beyond all dispute, that leads directly to the Vatican basement, a bunker in a Utah mountain, where, no doubt, a secret meeting has been called to discuss a strategic response to the sudden, arresting way you brushed your hair this morning and ate oatmeal and bananas for breakfast?
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	about the poem
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	"Conspiracy Theory" was inspired by seeing something on TV about the Kennedy assassination and after having a provocative conversation with a friend of mine about how we humans often feel compelled to imagine bizarre, dramatic, and elaborate causes lurking behind events that give our lives meaning. The poem came together quickly, and, I hope, gently satirizes our occasional inability to accept what happens in our lives and our need to weave elaborate fictions.
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	about the poet
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	Sigman Byrd lives in Boulder and teaches writing at the University of Colorado. His first book of poems, Under the Wanderer's Star, was chosen by Gerald Stern as the winner of the 2006 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize, and he has published poems in numerous magazines, including American Poetry Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, Georgia Review, and Southern Review. Sigman will be reading at the Cannon Mine in Lafayette, Thursday, May 8th, with Jeffrey Franklin, from Denver. See calendar for details!
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