It is a boulder rolling straight towards me

                        Indiana Jones style?

            Or maybe—

he says uncertainly—a puzzle?

                                                Nah.

                        More

like waking up to go to school

            after Christmas break.

                        It is

Like making plans with an indecisive friend.

                                                No,

It is a cool sheet on an August night or

                        when, in July

your eyes trace the dark kernel rocket into the sky before

            BAM!

                                                See?

                                    What about like coffee?

It doesn’t taste the way it smells.

I have the same feelings toward poetry as I do toward babies.

                                                                                                                                                                                                         Selah.

It is like tidying up your room; once done,

                        Don’t you want to stay there?

            All I can say, she said meekly, is that it is

a red balloon to me.

Definitely hieroglyphics.

            But have you ever put your eye to an old keyhole?

It is like that.

                        And she crosses her arms while

            another stretches back in his seat:

Walking in deep snow makes one tired though.

                        I think: He wouldn’t know.

It is like waiting to go somewhere for a very long time

                                                another sighs,

or trying to locate yourself on wide-dark water.

                                                                                             Selah.

            I’ve never done it,

                        one admits,

but it must be like deep sea diving

                        —or friendship? A good one, though.

            Let’s not be too romantic. How about

like a road trip with your family?

                        Yeah, something in-between like

a really lovely hike, but with lots of rocks and all uphill.

                        Or, perhaps it is like

a sophisticated game of chess.

            They picture dark wooden tables and smoking jackets.

But I watch them read

            and think:

                        So you think you will corner the king of this poem?

            and wonder if it is all that bad.

                                                After all,

to play chess is to admit that

some exchanges must be made.