One Waits

The time you showed me
your poem in the library
- eyes gleaming like the skin of mackerel,
hands clammy clasping shirt in an ingress of waiting -
I thought (so naiive am I)
that it was for me!
--
You soiled me with that chant about her limbs and voice,
and the countless courtesan ways of your goddess
And I thought maybe this poem was the abacus and
I had only to mathematize my way to your meaning and
I would find love.
--
Obvious to You, perhaps, that my surmise was foolish.
That of course
you wouldn't cock your poem at me if the poem was
for me.
That if I were your goddess
I'd be in a gold frame and the poem, under a mattress
Somewhere.
--
Yet even at that time,
even in my triste, I wanted only to soothe
you and
tell you how super I thought you were,
tell you that your poems were divine precision
and that they were sexy.
--
See, I'm your archetypical mongrel sheep
trying to butt my way into your favour, your forever.
Still.