Being a poet has nothing to do
with writing poetry. To be a poet
you just write poems, any poems
and there you go. All that’s left
is finding your adjective: Trite
or amateurish or pathetic or sad
successful or forgotten or unknown
or vain or desperate or the best
poets know this is subjective
and irrelevant but also too that
there is something objective here.
First you must write, that’s true.
Second you must fail (in public
repeatedly, I know, I’m sorry).
Third you must quit and live again
with new eyes. Now I wonder
if she still gets out of the shower
without drying off and leaves a trail
of wet footprints — Who can follow
such vanishing points? All I know
is being a poet has nothing

to do with writing poetry.