A poem is like a nail.
XX What? Any kind of nail:
a masonry nail, a box nail, a nail nail.
XX No, not a fingernail. Listen,
the kind of nail isn’t important.
Your house is falling down and
someone hands you this nail
and you say, “Isn’t that a beautiful nail?
I’m going to keep that for good.”
And you put it in a drawer—
XX yes, that drawer—
in your house that’s falling down.
XX Yeah, sure, it could’ve been a screw.
Look, I think you’re missing the point.