The first word is the hardest

Be a first word poet.

Compress the whole poem

into a tight little ball

along with your sketches

from memory,

a microphone chord,

a ukulele,

the Cats Eye Nebula,

and the clang of a free game 

of pinball.

Also your last letter home,

the Heart Sutra,

an awkward hand job,

Kansas at sun up,

buying a girl a shot of

Southern Comfort,

rusted batteries eating

through an old camera,

and the smell of Atlantic City,

squeeze all those things into

the first word of your poem

because it is infinite

and everything else is emptyness