hope is the last thing
I hope to forget.
Do you know how many
girls ask me about
the name on my arm?
I say,
magical and matter-of-fact.
Only beautiful palaces.
Declarative and distraught.
Delight and distraction.
Delight and distraction.
Not always seen but suffused with wishes.
Oh, that's a character
from a book I am writing,
I say,
which isn't untrue.
The deep keep,
always elsewhere
ink of forever love
from a mute muse.
After me, cometh the better builder.
Tell him I too have known.
When the coast is clear,
I will still be here, untaken, unshaken.