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I want to use this as the--

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this is the way to sacrifice
this poem, is to say this.

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I just used this as something
I come back to again and again.

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The dull person speaking,
myself at least in--

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I'd like to say part of myself.

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It's so hard up for
diction, that he just

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has one verb you know.

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And then finally in
the fourth sentence,

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it gets wildly inventive.

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It has another verb,
and that great feeling

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of going from a zero
to zero plus a fraction

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is the great creative feeling.

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These poems are meant
to be sacrificed,

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for points to be made about
what I suppose most of us

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here have some kind
of convergent interest

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in, writing literature.

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I think about it, because I
look at what's here before me.

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And I feel some kind
of issue related here,

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it's called "Fifteen."

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"South of the bridge on 17th,
I found back at the willows one

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summer day, a
motorcycle with engine

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running as it lay on its
side, ticking over slowly

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in the high grass.

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I was 15.

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I admired all that pulsing
gleam, the shiny flanks,

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the demure headlights
fringed where it lay.

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I led it gently to the road,
and stood with that companion

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ready and friendly.

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I was 15.

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We could find the end of a
road, meet the sky on our 17th.

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I thought about hills,
and patting the handle

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got back a confident opinion.

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On that bridge, we indulged
a forward feeling, a tremble.

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I was 15.

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Thinking, back
farther in the grass,

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I found the owner
just coming to where

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he'd flipped over the rail.

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He had blood on his
hand, he was pale.

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I helped him to his machine.

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He ran his hand over
it, called me good man.

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Roared away, I stood there, 15."

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