I ask them to take a poemand 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 dois 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.