Ben Starr

did you know kramer’s name was originally kessler?

Changed it for legal reasons. So did Cary Grant. 
Mark Twain. David Berkowitz. And my wife,

who was a bank robber. A train robber. A robber
of small banks on great trains. They caught her

just outside Naperville. Made her wear boiled
wool sewn into the most unflattering stripes. 

She escaped, stuffed herself inside the warden’s
Japanese-nibbed fountain pen. Rode west with a herd 

of armadillo. Ate thin-boned birds plucked from the sky, 
sipped on the sweat of various wetland grasses. 

Would Kramer still be Kramer if he wasn’t Kramer? 
Would my wife still be my wife if she wasn’t my wife? 

Would she still lust to brush thighs with the Union Pacific, blow 
a hole through an iron box, lather her pores in fresh struck gold?