In my youth when life was better
and I always wore the same sweater
and love was endlessly possible,
not with age and experience, impossible,
I would leave myself behind
and speak to my beer-drinking mind
about the poem in the present—
which the world, in its wisdom, lent.
Poetry is my saving grace.
Poetry still allows me to escape my face.
It trained me not to want
much, to look at the world, head tilted,
and ask “OK, what do you want?”
Maybe love is possible.
I still love comfortable sweaters
and have no will.