Like empty storefronts, the hollow bodies of unfinished poems haunt me. I hoped to finish them all someday. I have in fact waited years to finish them and have indeed finished a few at long last, after tussling and struggling and workshopping. But many others remain to haunt me. I'm tired of facing them. I want a fresh start. So I began thinking of deleting them. All the unfinished. To make room for more poems.

In fact I've started deleting. I asked advice about this, and was told, "Copy down the good lines you wrote before you delete. You might be able to use those good lines in other poems." In the larger scheme of things, what are my 100 or so unfinished poems but monuments to vanity and neglect? Is that what I want around me right now? Don't think so.