A poem stopped me on the street and began to tell me what I thought about it. “You hate me, don’t you?” it said. “You think me elegant, but you also can’t stand that I’m complex and that you believe you can’t be. No, you can’t stand that I can show you how you’re not as clever as you think you are, that sounds better.” It whinnied and stamped, then did something jerky with its head, making its mane go every which way the way wild poems sometimes do. “What makes you presume to know me? I can barely understand your pompous poem babble,” I said. “I know that when you look at me and feel yourself getting angry, that, even though you may not get me, there’s a part of you that feels compelled to get inside me and feel around for something certain, and that when something about me seems to accept that futile wish so, so gently, you can’t help but surrender to me, can’t help but become my literary groupie, so deeply you’ll begin to swallow your own guilt-ridden desire for me out of embarrassment, you’ll start chomping at the bit for some easier to understand so-called real poetry like you’re the one who invented distillation, but with this sad clown look on your face that says what the hell am I doing to my sense of humor, and later that night in bed so sad you’ll feel for denying yourself me, you’ll pull me back out and read me over and over, while grinding your teeth, keeping yourself up all night until it feels like I’m lying next to you and pushing ass up against your junk like a promise.” “Fuck you,” I said. “Poetry haters always do,” it said.