Maryann, I think the poet, the nonfictional "I," is there in the changeableness: you're with a friend who knows every place in town, & all you have to do is keep up... His voice seems to me reliable, in its mannerisms for one thing - its tone, its tics - and in its concerns: the Bronx, Chicago, Irishness, displacement, identity, religion, and in its (for lack of a better word) hagiographies, half of which are false. (Or are they?) In this trickery he is literally Mercurial. But he's reliably mercurial, and is indeed asking what reality is, how you tell something's real. These are important concerns, always.
I have to say, one of the reasons I find his work so exhilarating is the lack of the quotidian "I" we see so very tediously much of in so much poetry. I love that we get taken out of it into all kinds of places, and meet so many characters. This all-consuming interest in the world is much more refreshing to me than mere self-observation.
(Just as a suggestion for an access route!)
Glad you like the essay. His advice is invariably good!
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