I ask them to take a poem   

and hold it up to the light   

like a color slide

 

or press an ear against its hive.

 

I say drop a mouse into a poem   

and watch him probe his way out,

 

or walk inside the poem’s room   

and feel the walls for a light switch.

 

I want them to waterski   

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

 

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope   

and torture a confession out of it.

 

They begin beating it with a hose   

to find out what it really means.