Apology:

This is not the poem
That I was supposed to write
With little nymphly parallels and
Bold colorful allusions

This is simply to apologize
For the poem I could not write
I could not compress it into
Any kind of form but
Wild, ungainly prose

It’s sitting on my desk now
Wishing it were elegant
Wishing I were elegant
Wishing it were anything but prose

This is how rebellions foment:
A tentative discontent
With the order of the world
A first realization that perhaps
Our gods are not quite big enough
To make us what we want

I do not wish to go about
Putting limiters on God
But perhaps He also finds himself
As frail as I am

Before my work of art
Not so much unable but unwilling
To make the kinds of cuts and dissolutions
That would please another artist
Or even the unnamed longings of the work itself

What can my poem do
To work revenge on me
For never quite creating it
So little power has a piece of art
Over its creator

What can a poem do
But resist my gentle molding
Denying there has ever been
Such a thing as poetry?