Unfulfanciful

Imagination’s fancies
Are as valuable to me

As hearths were to Frankenstein,
Heroin to Kurt Cobain—

As addiction to habit
And habit to pleasure, so

Fantasy to poetry,
Poetry to memory.

Here’s a thank-you to Brenda,
Who doesn’t know me from words,

For providing me the lines
That say better than these lines

How it feels when lines happen
To me, “a god-load / of grief

Dumped down from some heaven / where
Words rain down / and the poet

Is soaked.” This happens to me.
This keeps happening. I wish

It explained why “the poets
Are dying.” The damned poems aren’t.

These poems and their fantasies,
Every day they’re soaking me.