Rilke is teaching me honesty.
I want to tell you things using decorous tools,
but Rilke says look for that middle.
I search around, listen to some swaggering music,
knowing I am nowhere near my truth.
I doubt I have any truth. I am a piece of watermelon,
turning brown and drying out. I read Rilke
and the center turns red. I inadvertently write well
and the outside also blazes red.

                                       But when I write
like this, I float away in the dust storm
and wish for death. Is it right that honesty
is so easy for everyone else? Alcohol might as well
have been a giant gun pointed down my throat,
not just pointed but blown clear through my guts,
for it has left me with no more middle.
I walk around with sprinklings of Rilke,
nice and lilty without any middle.