Working on a paper (3rd draft)

Working on a late paper,
I see a new poem so clearly
that I have to stop and reach for it
while my fingers still work.

I recall for the tenth time today that
there’s nothing between inspiration and me
except theory, masturbation,
and my tendency to confuse the two.

Watch the poet
touch himself! Watch him
self-deconstruct!
Watch him not write the poem!

I imagine myself
done at last
with the paper.
I win a coveted position

at a rare college. Damn, it’s peaceful —
sprawled out here, sitting around as comfortable
as a corpse in a casket, just another
smiling, brand-new professor on the make.

There are lots of pages left to fill.
Words float all around me. I seize a handful
and settle in to the wrong chore: first one line, then the next,
and a poem is scrawled across the school night.