I will never be able to write avant-garde poetry

With unexpected but meaningful spaces between words and lines

Because I do not know how to make tabs work on my computer

If I had a typewriter

I could be a real contender

In making poems located in the middle of the page

Or triangle shaped

Or strung out on a clothesline

I learned how to type in the seventh grade

On a black standard machine

A very serious contraption

The keys struck the paper with the force of my fingers.

At my finest

I achieved a speed of 20 words per minute.

When I went to college

I had my own typewriter

Portable in a matching suitcase

On which I typed my essays

Using erasable paper and white-out and

Even though my words were inflammatory

They were carefully written and

I knew how to use the tab key.

When I opened my law practice I bought an IBM word processor

It was slick

I used the tab key deftly

But my computer is different

Impenetrable

So I am resigned to writing in rectangles

And will leave typographical advances to poets smart enough

To understand a screen.