This is an odd poem to write at a time when I was at my most prolific. I was on a poetic high most days and when that dipped my next fix wasn’t hard to find. And I loved that side of it. If you’ll pardon my crudity: the shit was flowing.

I’ve spent a long time looking at this poem. What’s interesting to me is how I chose to open it. With a ‘no.’ The whole poem is therefore a response. What I never meant to say was said someplace else, before the poem. I never recorded (and can’t remember) what I said or to whom. Perhaps I slipped up with B., mumbled something I shouldn’t have. I could get away with saying I loved her easily enough because she knew I loved her and she loved me. Everyone loved everyone. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord. That was how I could get so close to her because I was shielded by brotherly love. What I did and how I felt behind that shield was another matter. Mostly wrote poems and felt like crap.