God knows what I was thinking about
when I decided to read it, but I'm barely
thirty lines into the poem and I know
I'm in trouble, I can see unfuckable
looming up in front of me like a Peterbilt,
but I somehow keep cadence,
change it to unmakeable
like I'm slicking putty on a crack, but I'm
not fooling Ms. Strickland, she's up like a fox, sniffing
the air, and then I'm barreling through the scene
where Dixon goes down on his girl friend
and then the lines are rolling past my eyes
like a subpoena and Ms. Strickland’s up
like a shot, racing around the room
like she's putting out a brush fire: This
particular poem shows how drugs and sex
canruin the lives of those people
unfortunate enough to be
obsessed by them, and I'm thinking,
What do you mean, those people, it’s me,
I’m the one who’s obsessed,
but she didn’t put out all the fires,
we both saw kids here who were still smoldering,
who’d seen that poems were more
than words, that something hidden
could suddenly reach out, pull you in,
kiss you hard enough to make you cry.