I Put A Lot Of Pressure On This Page<br > Mike Henry<br >Exped it to be better than me， to do what I mean， not v， hat I say.<br >while I sil on tile porch and wail for it to bring home straight As.<br >I never learned hov， to hold a pencil .just right. As kids were<br >curving their new fingers like an army of small monkeys with chopsticks.<br >I grabbed the thing and gripped it like I should throw it like a dart，<br >now I stand and look for targets， how to paint a picture， draw your heart.<br >how to write the words to describe this run that we are making.<br >Knowing that I can t， that it s far more than impossible， bul<br >that a wise (and drunken) friend of mine once told me that the man<br >who only takes on the fights he knows he can win is a coward，<br >and that it was the American warrior poet Billy Joel who taught us<br >that your mistakes are the only thing that you can trul) call your own，<br >so I set out to fail.<br >As children playing hide and seek， the first thing you do is lind all the places<br >where a person is not， go fish. This is how 1 11 describe your eyes， I ll make<br >a li~ of every color， take a census of each hue， subtract them all from sun-<br >light and the one that s left is you.<br >Sailors in tall wooden ships never really knew where they were， it was just<br >aguess， aPR Campaign to distract hungry men from mutiny， a ficdon based<br >on slats， on the intangible wind and the waves， a number of notches whittled<br >to wood，to ~talog sunrises since they last stood on the land. All riley reully<br >knew is~hal they were lost， and they thought they should go ... that v， ay.<br >I get llke that， Adrift and amazed， make me a name for this color and I ll<br >hre~ it onto the sidewalk like a box of chalk under a bicycle tire， flooded<br >intoa puddle and dried a week later into something new， reborn.<br >Now at aloss for words， how I m tempted to rhyme...caress with confess，<br >or love with glove， but nothing rhymes with steam-hot teelhgrinding lust<br >huddle， orat least nothing I can think of.<br >We ll say<br >white rabbit，<br >white r~lbbit，<br >white rabbit three times tbr luck. but not need it<br >and I ll find miracles in your hand on my back<br >as I push a grocery carl， one wheel limping<br >