Tonight I Have Visions of Being a Poet,

of standing in a room full of people listening
     to my friend
of twenty three years introduce me. He talks
     of ping pong
and sail boats, how he tipped us on purpose
     and I lost
my second pair of sunglasses. He talks of betrayal
     and tears
in a basement, how he never thought I would face
     up to real
friendship. He talks about walking down to Anodyne,
     black coffee
and two different Steinbecks, how those novels wrote
     the first bridge
of words we walked across. He looks at me leaning
     against the wall
next to a painting and I look back wondering how many
     other poets fail
to be poets, how many other writers fail to be
     writers, how
we both made it, achingly pushing each other like bricks of words
     back and forth in dreamt
wheel barrows until the beginnings of a house were seen,
     the foundations,
when it was only two of us building, only four hands
     and mortar,
before we went to school and learned how to train the architect
     within us,
before we assembled construction crews and hired a foreman
     to get the job done
right and fast, to take the architect’s blueprints and turn them
     into physical,
bring the reader into the house, not just for a tour,
     but to live,
to die, to eat, to love, to sleep, to dream, and to brush their teeth
     while the dog
licks water out of the toilet. He looks back at the room full
     of people
and tells them about Bruce Springsteen, he tells them about
     music and love
for the story songs. He stops and they clap while I walk slowly
     up to him, we hug
in affirmation of our hopes finally realized and I begin. Tonight,
     I say,
I have visions of being a poet.