Poet, Adjusted


I'm saddened by the news

that your new life is working out

that the woman you're with understands

and has time for you and wants to spend time 

with your mother


That your work is going well and that

Men of Letters have reviewed your work

and that accolades are in the mail


That your children now seek you out for advice

that neighbors drop by with drinks in hand

that the offer you made for the little place by the lake

was accepted last week


I wish you miserable in some crappy loft 

waist deep amid the divorce papers 

the final friendly letters that precede 

legal action, the empties and crusts 

cascades of envelopes unopened


I wish you on the sill in the dawn light 

pen in hand writing furiously your way out 

or the way back in, your poems bearing 

the clarity of light that comes only from

the edge of a precipice, toes 

extending into space, your life 

wide like the sun