For Philip Booth

For twenty years now I've been learning how not to write

Lines like Nebraska's by talking away a ditty

Every day simply for the sake of my own sounding-

But got so soaked at it once was a man shaken

Awake by the Law in that flat State, jerked up to see

What Elizabeth Bishop found on a fish she held

Out of water just a little bit too damned long

For my Muse. Remembering that bow as if it were

Still inland, I wanted to say thanks for the mirages.