No One Here Likes A Wet Dog.

I Think Clarity Is The Real Risk In Poetry Because You Are Exposed. You're Out In The Open Field. You're Actually Saying Things That Are Comprehensible, And It's Easy To Criticize Something You Can Understand.

And The Reason I Am Writing This On The Back Of A Manila Envelope Now That They Have Left The Train Together Is To Tell You That When She Turned To Lift The Large, Delicate Cello Onto The Overhead Rack, I Saw Him Looking Up At Her And What She Was Doing The Way The Eyes Of Saints Are Painted When They Are Looking Up At God When He Is Doing Something Remarkable, Something That Identifies Him As God.

Until Recently, I Thought 'occasional Poetry' Meant That You Wrote Only Occasionally.

As Soon As I Start To Write I'm Very Aware, I'm Trying To Be Aware That A Reader Just Might Well Pick Up This Poem, A Stranger. So When I'm Writing - And I Think That This Is Important For All Writers - I'm Trying To Be A Writer And A Reader Back And Forth. I Write Two Lines Or Three Lines. I Will Immediately Stop And Turn Into A Reader Instead Of A Writer, And I'll Read Those Lines As If I Had Never Seen Them Before And As If I Had Never Written Them.

This Is Not What It Is Like To Be You, I Realized As A Few Of Your Magnificent Clouds Flew Over The Rooftop. It Is Just Me Thinking About Being You. And Before I Headed Back Down The Hill, I Walked In A Circle Around Your House, Making An Invisible Line Which You Would Have To Cross Before Dark.