Don’t Ask Me to Collaborate

I won't collaborate in poems.
Except with the language I was born to.
Occasionally, with painters and collagists-

dead now, typically- who can't voice
opposition to my misappropriations.
Sometimes, with other poets-

usually dead like the painters-
whose trusts and executors don't
know me to complain of thievery,

insolence or misinterpretation.
And, very often with the world
and the space and stars with which

it falls towards something. No,
I won't collaborate despite
my persistence otherwise.