I Will Try To Disappoint

I Wrote Poetry For Seven Or Eight Years, Maybe Longer, Before I Could Say I Was A Poet. If People Asked, I'd Say I Wrote Poetry; I Wouldn't Go Further. I Was In My Mid- To Late-thirties Before I Felt That I Was A Poet, Which I Think Meant That I Had Begun To Embody My Poems In Some Way. I Wasn't Just A Writer Of Them. Hard To Say What, As A Poet, My Place In The World Is. Some Place Probably Between Recognition And Neglect.

Isn't There A Curious Elegance In How One Moment Passes Into Another?

Connubial Because With Alarming Accuracy She’d Been Identifying Patterns I Was Unaware Of—this Tic, That Tendency, Like The Way I've Mastered The Language Of Intimacy In Order To Conceal How I Felt— I Knew I Was In Danger Of Being Terribly Understood.

I’ll Always Deny That I Kissed Her. I Was Just Whispering Into Her Mouth.

I Make Myself Up From Everything I Am, Or Could Be. For Many Years I Was More Desire Than Fact. When I Stop Becoming, That’s When I Worry.