Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment.

Poetry is the report of a nuance between two moments, when people say, 'Listen!' and 'Did you see it?' 'Did you hear it? What was it?'

Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand to your pencil to your paper till you get the answer.

I remember the Chillicothe ballplayers grappling the Long Island ball players in a sixteen-inning game ended by darkness. And the shoulders of the Chillicothe players were a red smoke against the sundown and the shoulders of the Rock Island players were a yellow smoke against the sundown. And the umpire's voice was hoarse calling balls and strikes and outs and the umpire's throat fought in the dust for a song.

I remember in my early 20s when I felt I couldn't live past 30. I was learning how to write. I had a lot of hard work ahead of me.

Poetry is a kinetic arrangement of static syllables.

Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and you can look out of the window and see the blue sky - or the answer is wrong and you have to start over and try again and see how it comes out this time.