How Others Do It

I wonder how other poets do it,
those happily married,
living in Paradise,
enough money to get by
and on,
vacationing in 4-star hotels
in Paris, France
or pitching a yurt on the banks
of the Nile,
writing of joy
only of joy,
while I am
alone,
living by the skin of my teeth,
dreaming of white sand
and Hawaiian ginger and gardenia
blossoms,
asleep in no one’s arms.

I wonder what poems I’d write
if I had another life,
what poems would define me.

I wonder who made
me
the poet I am.