Work

What, copy by hand an entire book
Remy de Gourmet’s Le Latin Mystique
three hundred and fifty pages
like Cendrars did?
Revise a manuscript again and again
starting from scratch each time
until a guest room won’t hold the pages?
Or, and it’s entirely not my line,
crunch numbers and read codes
from morning through dinner to midnight
day after day and earn hundreds of thousands
to spend on watches and first class flights
to Paris for the weekend?
Give me a chair, not too comfortable,
a fire at my back when the wind blows
out of the northeast as it has all day,
a notebook and a fountain pen
for the scherzo it makes with the paper,
and the dogs to walk when I need
a break or am stymied.
Lunch at one followed by the daily papers,
they come that late to Northern Vermont,
a drink at six then wine with dinner is perfect
for prose at least.
Poetry abides no schedule,
has to be paid on demand, in full.