To Mary Ruefle, Poet

and since you're an American Poet or a poet writing in English or however you might put this in a cv which you'll surely never need being unique and therefore beyond all job descriptions except poet since you're, well, those things or that thing you may never have seen a kangaroo (and in a zoo they can't hop..) but if you do you'll recognise it when I say it - your mind is metaphorically, and no-one handles metaphors like you do may I say, like a kangaroo - huge hops off into the horizon of thought with what in marsupial body-language may be bounding, boundless joy a kangaroo which might in the world of your poems which I can't hope to imitate but I'll have a go, be carrying a baby roo in its pouch with its head sticking out and a backward glance towards you who one day will return grown-up with a crumpled poem in its own pouch addressed to Mary Ruefle mentioning in passing immortality