I believed the poem would shift if I wrote alongside my sleeping cats,
the sun pinkening them, the serene animal of no ego.
I believed seasonal depression made the poems punch more, a soft suicide
like grass growing through gravel streets.
I believed the poet saw feelingly, her sense diametric to the institution,
the poem a deranged tear in a firmament fogged by dirty endowments.
I believed we could come to the summit of meaning, guided by Gloucester,
believed in the word crystalline only in the poem, that meaning, to exist, must leave us.
I believed I came up with the answer for poetry while stoned under a table,
the serene animal of no ego bearing always a god of vapor, then forgot.
I believed jealousy because it believed in me, a beautiful terrible feeding that is
the racket of poetry, the racket of enterprise, the speak speak speak of power.
I believed the Venn diagram of a cute shy girl and the cunty girl was a circle,
so I wrote a poem called Self-Portrait and deleted the poem called Self-Portrait.
I believed I could write a poem about exercise, the long muscles tensed
and working, the dazzling sky of our bodies, the equine breath of work.
I believed in the institution for many tax seasons, the money owed
and the money owed and the money owed and the money owed.
I believed the secret of the poem snakes through other people’s poems,
and meaning is a matter of finding its scent, kissing its wet earth.
I believed in no music, no encouragement, the days sealed shut.
Do you see the pelicans gliding overhead, arching in a single direction?
Now, poet, do you see?