Ellie Schoenfeld

The Other Poet

by Ellie Schoenfeld

The poet explains exactly
what her poems are doing on a variety of levels.
I am jealously impressed.
My poems go places
but send no postcards --I have no idea
what they are doing. They do
whatever they want to.
I give them curfews
but they wake me in the middle
of the night, they interrupt meetings
and other situations where I have no time
for them. They hang on me
when I am on the phone.
They do not keep my secrets
and sometimes they lie.
They can be sullen and withdrawn
or explosively obscene.
I think my poems have problems with authority,
conduct disorders, attention deficit.
The other poet is like the parent
with the bumper sticker about their honor student
while I am speeding along
to get to the correctional facility
before visiting hours are over.
I try to give my poems direction.
They tell me they have cleaned their rooms
but we both know it's not true.
After all these years of therapy
we still don't understand each other.
I write a poem and think
"What the hell is that?!"

- Ellie Schoenfeld from The Dark Honey: New and Used Poems. © Clover Valley Press, 2009.
(on Writer's Almanac today twa@garrisonkeillor.com)