The poem answers a question by refusing its premise. The line above it, "Prompt #3 again," suggests it began as a writing exercise. The prompt asks what the speaker "most resisted" before it "suited" her, a question that expects a small story of conversion, the reluctant beginner who ends up loving the pottery class. The first line closes that door: "I don't do things I resist." It is a tautology, and it sounds like someone folding her arms. That stubbornness makes the poem funny at first and, by the end, oddly persuasive.
The construction is plain and conversational. After the single opening line, the poem settles into eight tercets of free verse with no end rhyme. The lack of rhyme suits a speaker who sounds like she is talking across a kitchen table. The sentences are short and declarative, and the list builds through repetition. "And goat cheese. / And martinis. And cocktail parties" strings objections together with the same casual "And," as if the speaker could go on all afternoon. The list also escalates. It starts with the body (swimming, running, cycling), moves to taste (beets, goat cheese), then to social life (cocktail parties, the telephone before noon, committees), and finally to culture, in the form of literary criticism.
The humor lives in small, exact choices. "I sink like a stone" is a cliché, but it is followed by the more particular dislike of "fish nibbling my toes," which is a very specific fear. "Beets taste like dirt, only worse" gives a joke a second punch with its last two words. The best touch is "Inflexibly, I resist yoga." The adverb describes the speaker's body and her attitude at once, and it lets her mock herself without apologizing.
The poem turns on a stanza break. The speaker resists literary criticism "with a passion // that borders on insanity." This is the only moment she admits to any intensity, and the joke is that her one passion is a refusal. Then she steps back and states her case: "Resisting does not diminish my life. / It suits me." The stanza ends on "I like," and the reader has to cross the gap to find out what she likes. The word also echoes the earlier "don't like," since fish, books and movies were all rejected on the grounds of dislike. Her whole philosophy rests on that simple verb.
What she likes turns out to be ordinary protection: "screens that keep out the bugs," "jackets and boots / that keep out the wet and cold." Here the poem changes the meaning of its key word. To resist no longer means only to say no. It also means what a water-resistant coat does, which is to hold a barrier between you and the weather. The refusals in the list now look like clothing. The last stanza makes the link with "I like my resistances," and "keep" is repeated in the final two lines: "They keep me unbitten. / They keep me dry." The coined-sounding "unbitten" is defined by what has not happened, and it quietly echoes the fish nibbling at her toes and the bugs outside the screen. The ending is made of short, plain, mostly one-syllable words, and the poem closes with a small click of satisfaction.
The title adds one more layer. "Still resisting" means continuing to resist, but "still" can also mean motionless, which is exactly what yoga-, running- and swimming-averse people are accused of being. The poem lets both readings stand and does not seem troubled by either.
The poem matters because it defends something that is often treated as a flaw. In a culture that urges people to try new things, push their limits and be good sports, it argues gently that knowing what you dislike is a form of self-knowledge. It does this without preaching. The speaker never claims her choices are better than anyone else's, only that they keep her comfortable. The humor is what makes this an argument rather than a complaint, because by the final stanza the reader is laughing along and nodding as well.