It used to be my inclination
to write poems containing promises
to soon write better poems.

This is a poem to admit
I will not be writing better poems;
I will be writing precisely this quality

of poem biweekly until
I am crushed by an errant bus or decide
the world is inundated enough

with mediocre writing (lousy
with lousy poetry — ha! still got it!)…
almost certainly the former.

But I did try to write better;
this was not an act of bluster or bravado;
it was a thoughtful young man

sewing promises into the liners
of warm winter jackets I thought for sure we’d need.
But maybe that’s the most dangerous

manifestation of bravado:
the presumption that someone needs
something from someone when they don’t.