DAY TWO

I explained poetry to the poet like this: Yours is mine without the unnecessaries.

But I can't understand without the extras. For poetry—it's opaque. And who can comprehend what's unseeable? I come to the conclusion that I am not sophisticated enough for poems.

•••

This day • A bowl. A boy. Sweet peaches and heavy cream. Houdini wrecked a car. A doctor calls in an admission. Another boy. A mother. An accident with thick black smoke. Night air gauzy with steam. A poetess with droopy hair. Dead Curie, the child in a tree. A man. His memory. A baguette one too many outside the arms of industry. And rattan chair that barely gets away with its life.