DOING POETRY

DOING POETRY
by Jack Gilbert
From Refusing Heaven. New York: Knopf, 2005

Poem, you sonofabitch, it’s bad enough
that I embarrass myself working so hard
to get it right even a little,
and that little grudging and awkward.
Bit it’s afterward I resent, when
the sweet sure should hold me like
a trout in the bright summer stream.
There should be at least briefly
access to your glamour and tenderness.
But there’s always this same old
dissatisfaction instead.