Not all things 
said by poets
are poems.  

We order
pizzas, wings,
beer.  We pray

stale prayers that
barely pulse with
longing, rage

impotently, curse
in traffic. Those words
aren’t poems,

though we may be bent
toward seasoning them
as if they were.  All

the more reason
for the few poems
we do get to write

to be full of us
at our best.
It simply will not do

for us to fail. Those
fluent curses and
florid grocery lists

should prepare us
for those times when
the breath we spend 

might be a last breath.