I Don't Want to Write a Poem Today with Her Voice in My Head

On her first mother's day
Sarah reads me a piece
In the local paper,
Not about mothering
But about a poet
Who's won a Guggenheim.

Back up. I've done nothing
To make today special
In the usual way--
No chocolates, no flowers,
No breakfast served in bed,
Not so much as a card.

A poem was all I'd planned,
One in this can-can line
Of interchangeable
High-kickers in knickers
I've written since Sarah
Dared me: "a poem a day!"

In meeting that challenge
I've rediscovered joys
I thought I'd lost for good,
Pleasures found composing
Freely, swiftly, lightly
To earn my daily verse.

And Sarah, good mother
To our one and only
Sequoia Athena,
Has also been mother
To many of the best
Phrases in this fun.

I wish I wrote more,
More better, more often,
That's all, just to thank her.

And then there's this poet,
This prize-winner who boasts
One good line takes a week.

The poetry machine
Loves her, apparently.
All her prizes prove it.
Now they've awarded her
Forty-thousand dollars
To finish five more poems.

Of course I'm envious.
Eight thousand bucks a poem!
We go to her website
To sample golden words:
"Kiss the brick," "compass rose,"
"An end to love." Oi vey.

A terrible snooty
Is born! Precise. . . . Diction. . . .
Her thickly perfected lines
Make my teeth hurt. I turn
To Sarah. "This is why
I gave up writing poems.

This is Writers' Workshop,
The New Yorker, the whole,
Inbred, kumquat shebang!"
"Oh relax," Sarah says
"Use the thing you just said
For a title."
                   I did.