I’m reading Raymond Carver and thinking of my friend Michael –
not because he recommended Carver, but because
when he’s in his stride, Michael writes like Carver. I call it ‘me
poetry’. I wrote lots of it. Until I got tired of seeing “me” all the time.
Nonetheless, there’s something in the delicacy of Carver’s/ Michael’s ruminations, memories, crows, cars, night drives, bars, slices of paradise,
all these tangents — they really create something out of moments
that may, or may not, have ever happened. They keep you guessing that way.

So, I’m reading Michael, and I realize, the man has just written a poem,
gone to another plane, taken a page from his existence – and I’m hostage
to him: I’ll watch him race for his life across a bridge that crumbles
behind him. We, the audience, stare, excited, scared, transfixed, cheer,
certain he will fall, anticipate the carnage, secretly pray he makes it.
Triumphant, as the last trestle falls into the gorge, he stands on the other side,
arms raised in tribute to us—those who doubt, the small, the fearful,
we who listen, and maybe think, after something like that, you can look
back, reflect, and say to yourself, it must feel good to get that all written down.
Because it means something. No goddammit – no – it means everything.