If only my poetry could
bring down my mortgage debt,

I would write a poem a day
for the bankers who own my home.

I write a poem a day and sometimes
two, but mostly for myself.

I never expect a dime out of poetry.
It does not lower my blood pressure.

It did not stop the cancer that
the doctors skillfully treated.

I am just thinking out loud.
No banker would take my poetry as

payment. They would not wipe their
noses with any page I have written.

I am just going to work until I am dead,
and write poetry as well,

until my mind is gone and
the banker forecloses on my home.