Victor Hugo had his servants hide his clothes

so that he couldn’t go out until he had written

his daily quota of words, and Balzac drank upwards

of 50 cups of coffee a day to prevent his creativity

from flagging, but just as the blackbird is not a crow,

I’m not that kind of desperate – I mean, yet.

Howie Good is the author of more than a dozen poetry collections, including most recently Gunmetal Sky (Thirty West Publishing) and The Bad News First (Kung Fu Treachery Press).