My greatest poem
is at home
I left it there
on a chair,
lacking, as I do,
the superb organizational
& systematizing skills
of the other great poets

I find, though, the physical
positioning of the text
as a whole in space
to have no bearing
in discussion of its content

My greatest poem has twenty lines
Here is line seven
of my greatest poem:
awake shivering & fleeing the dream
Here is line eighteen:
I never knew him

Well I ask you --
Great or what?
It’s too bad I forgot to bring it
I don’t remember it all
& can’t really do it justice
but o! there is confessional there
& genitalia a-plenty, twenty
wide wide endeavors -- beavers
I like to call them: they work
so hard & say so little
My twenty-beaver-wide greatest poem:
product of not quitting
while sitting
there with a splitting
headache at two a.m.
in an old room
& a gin-soaked bathrobe (forget
the gin, get your mind off
your matter & finish
the poem):

My greatest poem picks
up where the others
leave off
It stands alone, it stands
alone
My greatest poem
is the cheese