Sometimes, in my published complaints about not being a writer, I have recalled the prospect - the yearning to be a writer - as it first formed for me.

When I write, I put aside the heterosexual world to admit a muse that is a woman-loving-woman female.

The city and nature, the built stone and the found stone, concrete and slate, poetry addresses them all democratically.

I also wanted to be like my brothers, physically, and yet not physically. So I would constantly - and I think nowadays it's taken for granted that this is what girlfriends do - I would constantly wear their shorts, put on their shirts. That did not seem odd because we were desperately poor for quite a while. It wasn't as if pretty little girlie things were available to me.

My brothers were my peers, but they were not the preeminent male figures in my emotional life.

One should be able to teach adequately and feel good about it.

Note, the reply will not be "I write," an act that I have, after all, been performing since I was nine.