The first line is the DNA of the poem; the rest of the poem is constructed out of that first line. A lot of it has to do with tone because tone is the key signature for the poem. The basis of trust for a reader used to be meter and end-rhyme.

Usually the poems are written in one sitting. There's always a groping towards some satisfying ending. But I'd say the hardest part is not writing. Once the writing starts, it's too pleasurable to think of it as a difficulty.

I think my poems are slightly underrated by the word accessible.

I try to presume that no one is interested in me. And I think experience bears that out. No one's interested in the experiences of a stranger - let's put it that way. And then you have difficulty combined with presumptuousness, which is the most dire trouble with poetry.

This is not what it is like to be you, I realized as a few of your magnificent clouds flew over the rooftop. It is just me thinking about being you. And before I headed back down the hill, I walked in a circle around your house, making an invisible line which you would have to cross before dark.

All they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with a rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.

I stared up at the ebbing quarter moon and the stars scattered like a handful of salt across the faraway sky.