Labor Day, 2009

Where am I at 9:58 on the morning in question,
unable to concentrate, unable to reach
the words I feel I need, knowing nobody really does.
The air outside is cool, but one thing's for sure:
I'm not out there. I'm inside somewhere
with heavy eyelids and sciatica, back to the kitchen
with its ticking clock. So I'm in the yellow room
with the computer and a bookcase of poetry.
Ted Berrigan is by my side. The sidewalks
of 6th and Bowery have been waiting for him,
but he's here in New Milford. He helped jump start
my car this morning so I could drive to Stop
& Shop and buy some stamps so I could mail
my letter to Tom Clark, and while I was there
I thought What the hell and bought a Powerball
quick pick for the first time in a couple of years
and if I win I have no idea what I'll do but I know
I'll quit my job and maybe become a publisher again
or move to New York, I don't know, maybe I would veg
and be a useless lazy rag on the sofa all day.
What was it I used to say? Why play the lottery?
If I won, I'd lose my edge. And edge is the most
important thing to a poet, more dear than life itself,
or at least that's how it seems. For some it was true,
for others, well, things change when you're handcuffed,
hooded, and have a pistol pressed against your skull,
so who's to say. The clock in the kitchen is really
there, ticking, ticking, ticking, shaking up
my nerves, driving me mad, but I don't want it
to stop. I dive into the pool of words inside me,
a kind of magic, fast and furious and almost free.