I ask them to take a poem



and hold it up to the light



like a color slide







or press an ear against its hive.







I say drop a mouse into a poem



and watch him probe his way out,







or walk inside the poem’s room



and feel the walls for a light switch.







I want them to waterski



across the surface of a poem



waving at the author’s name on the shore.







But all they want to do



is tie the poem to a chair with rope



and torture a confession out of it.







They begin beating it with a hose



to find out what it really means.





