Whatever it takes to write a poem
I don’t have it.
All the editors of America agree.
Nor could I ever hit a baseball well enough
to impress any coach
glancing up from a clipboard.
In the evening this late in the year
the sun presses green and golden through laced leaves
like light through sacred glass.
Lines like that
always kill me—
swing and a miss.
The truth you must not tell:
My poems yawn about the heart
forever wounded.
I am much too old to make the team.
I stand in the cage
humming dollar after dollar through the machine
swinging the lumber.
