James Tate - The Camel lyrics

I received the strangest thing in the mail today. It's a photograph of me riding a camel in the desert. And yet I have never ridden a camel, or even been in a desert. I am wearing a jellaba and a keffiyeh and I'm waving a rifle. I have examined the photo with a magnifying gla** and it is definitely of me. I can't stop looking at the photo. I have never even dreamed of riding a camel in the desert. The ferocity in my eyes suggests I am fighting some kind of holy war, that I have no fear of d**h. I must hide this photo from my wife and children. They must not know who I really am. I must not know.