Raymond Carver: The Pipe

The next poem I write will have firewood
right in the middle of it, firewood so thick
with pitch my friend will leave behind
his gloves and tell me, “Wear these when you
handle that stuff.” The next poem
will have night in it, too, and all the stars
in the western hemisphere; and an immense body
of water shining for miles under a new moon.
The next poem will have a bedroom
and living room for itself, skylights,
a sofa, a table and chairs by the window,
a vase of violets cut just an hour before lunch.
There’ll be a lamp burning in the next poem;
and a fireplace where pitch-soaked
blocks of fir flame up, consuming one another.
Oh, the next poem will throw sparks!
But there won’t be any cigarettes in that poem.
I’ll take up smoking the pipe.