I am such a wonderful person.
Every other Wednesday afternoon,
out of the goodness of my heart,
and for no reason of personal advantage
or any expectation of gain or reward,
I read to a kindergarten class
at a local elementary school.
I put up with the little faces 
that brighten into smiling sunshine 
when they see me in the doorway,
suffer having them call out my name
as I enter the room, endure it
as almost every one of them tries to 
hug me, pat me, rub against me, 
or shake my hand, each wanting 
at least a little piece of me.
I force myself to smile when they show me
“my new dress” or the latest missing tooth,
or another points to his friend and tells me
“Today’s Alex’s birthday and he’s”
and then holds up a handful of fingers
plus one as though that’s really a number
I care the least bit about.  And then, 
when I get ready to read, they all want me 
to “read my book!” “read my book!”
and no matter what book I end up reading,
when I sit down in the big rocking chair, 
they all gather on the rug around me,
listen in wonder as I read what, most of the time,
turns out to be a pretty interesting story,
and sometimes when I finish, one of them will say: 
“you sure are a good reader, Mr. Self,” 
and as I leave, usually with a cookie in my hand, 
they call out their thank yous and rush
to hug me, pat me, rub against me
again.  I tell you, it’s almost more 
than a soul can bear, but I put up with it
because, like I said, I’m a wonderful person,
and there is nothing in this for me. I do it 
absolutely out of the goodness of my heart
and for no reason of personal advantage
or any expectation of gain or reward.
                        

Unbeknownst to the poet
carrying his plastic bag of trash
out to the curb for collection,
his most fervent reader, most avid fan,
and the greatest living scholar
on the subject of his collected works,
published and unpublished,
is the trash man,
who, on Tuesdays and Fridays,
stops in front of the poet’s house
and, rather than tossing 
the poet’s bag of trash into the compactor,
reverently places it inside the truck
for later excavation and examination,
culling from its contents the garbage-stained
crumpled-up pages of poems in progress,
first drafts, revisions, revisions of revisions,
final version yet to be edited, 
then edited through more drafts, 
revisions and revisions of revisions;
and the trash man saves them all,
lines them up in proper chronological order
so he can see the act of creation 
from concept to completion
and all the steps in between,
which explains why, on those rare occasions 
when the poet makes contact with the trash man,
one dropping trash off as the other picks it up,
the trash man will sometimes
say a word, use a turn of phrase,
something vaguely familiar, suggestive,
that causes the poet, 
back at his desk a few minutes later, 
to change a word or two, 
revise yet again a poem
he and, unbeknownst to him,
the trash man, are working on,
writing together.
                        

We are haunted by things we did not do,
wish we had done, wanted to do,  
but for whatever reason did not do them;
and the remembrance, that forever
not knowing, lingers, hangs in the air
like the sword of Damocles or the smell 
of mothballs when we pry open the cedar chest 
where we keep so many of the things 
that haunt us, that go bump in our dreams: wild 
strawberries we did not climb the fence
to pick and eat one hot summer’s day; doors
we did not open, chances we did not take, gift
horses we looked in the mouth, whose yellow teeth 
we counted and kept on counting 
until the legs gave out and the scrawny beast 
fell to the ground and died; words 
we thought but did not say, silence 
that haunts us night and day, temptation 
resisted, rued and regretted like ice-cream 
melted to a puddle in the dish;
and that single strand of gold-flecked hair 
holds the sword suspended in the air
above our heads, over our happiness, 
such as it is, haunted by things,
by things we did not do.