Who’s There?
September 15, 2008
I see him, every now and then,
peeking out for a moment,
and then he’s gone.
I’d like to think I can coax
him out, cajole him into performing
his trick of writing a few beautiful lines,
but it seldom works
that way. When thrust into the lights
he retreats, embarrassed, into the shadows.
Sometimes he shakes me awake
in the night with something to write.
If I don’t get up right away,
he slouches off, discouraged,
and doesn’t try twice.
But if I leap up right away, write
as he dictates, he always rewards
my loss of sleep with a clever turn
of phrase that I can seldom arrive at.
alone. The best I can usually produce
without him
is something more like this.