He read a poem about the death of
a father when the poet was young
and the consequent sale of the
family farm and it gave him an
idea for a poem of his own about
early death and lost love but
unwelcome thoughts kept invading
like arrows piercing his brain,
like the arrows he saw in a store
the day before in Cave Creek, beaut-
iful arrows, handmade by Indians
in central Mexico. Unwelcome thoughts
often appear as something beautiful,
desirable, something to hold onto,
stroke, nurture, like running an
index finger along the arrow’s
feathers; that’s how they get
in but then the sharp tip tears
deep into the spirit leaving no-
thing but a bloody psyche, and so,
he just quit the poem.