Writer's Block

He read a poem about his mother,
moving me enough to walk over to him after the reading was over,
but the words I wanted to say condensed
and sat cold and slippery on the hand
I offered him.
I wanted to tell him that his words were
beautiful enough to copy into my quote book,
one of my favorite things,
a selective selection. I wanted to ask him
how I could make someone's quote book--
how to write something that wasn't what one
of my professors calls a "burp poem,"
a regurgitation of youthful hormones
stuffed in thin, plastic bags,
overflowing like the dumpsters of beer cans
behind the row, smelling just as foul.
There are poems in my toes, at the bottom of
my feet; each day they flatten,
crushed under my weight, molding to my
instep . . . never making it to my fingers.