Interviews can be so interesting if you are not used to them. I was interviewed today by a charming young woman who asked me what head space I had to be in to write poetry. That led to this . . .
The steam shovel
in the glass case
at the midway
is designed
to tempt
to promise
but not to deliver.
One day Tiger
will shoot
a record breaking sixty-two
and the next day
little better than par.
The poet hangs
by a pen point
a light year above
the crystalline moment
and knows no fear
but that he will fall
elsewhere.
The kid on the shovel
and the Tiger
and the poet
all know
the prize can be
impossible
probable
or inescapable.
To write,
I have to place myself
on the edge
of vertigo
hanging over
that memory
struck in the crystal moment.
