Someone once advised me
that I should always write
what I know, for that gives
the work an honesty that is
essential to its believability.

I should add that he said it
knowing I was a poet,
and not to cause me to give up
any dreams of fiction
I might still have harbored.

But as I age, I find that
I seem to know less and less
and yet I still need to write
for that is a part of me with which
I cannot easily part.

So forgive me if I now write
what I do not know, for you,
the few who by choice of luck
end up reading my writing
will never know the difference.