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How to Write a Poem
by Ed Bennett

your head, your hands,
a strong dose of heart,
you start with these and
add memories like:

Amy Fallon
in your arms
at the prom
laughing,
then and later,
forever later,

your children's shouts
a Yankee game
your dog playing catch
the reckoning
the divorce

two weeks at the lake
in Upper Michigan
where you would become
the next Hemingway
or satisfied to be
an ersatz equivalent

the losses, the wins
the forever thought
of Amy Fallon
on that last night
of lovemaking and sorrow

you take a pencil
(because there is never
a perfect first draft)
put it to paper,
write about moonlight
(or whatever)
and the familiar voice
forever whispering
in your ear

your hand will write
that the memory lives
because you never learned
how to stop loving her,

you blink back a tear
while your heart
sustains the couplets

and that is how
you write a poem



 

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