Why you’re such a good poet

When you’re writing a poem,

your courage shrinks until it is the

size of a comma.  You have to

clamor up each of the letters with your

tiny feet, unable to see what lies

behind it.  Each word plunges you

into an abyss.  Last evening,

you wrote your name on the horizon,

right where the sun was setting, then

you lifted your pencil stub to the sky. 

Only those who know that language

has no soul can drown in it.  Only

the dead, who know the body has no

blood, just thin lines of graphite, can

make poems appear by erasing

everything you’ve written.