I count eleven wads of paper
that were once themselves poems
and I wonder how long before
this page has found itself
as twelve among them,
thirteen, thirty,
I will live to be that old at least.

So in my age I can speak of this philosophy
of slow coffee where I and those
like me, borrow humanities and
never say by what means
one can love,

love,

there's a philosophy anyone
can study under a bed
or in any thick stack of paper,
a game you can write or
cry on or

smear a metaphor full of sex and
masterpiece through silhouettes and
angry pretenses to create a harmony
and then,
as in fashion, he is art and
I am writing.

And when you share this age with me,
While I have your attention and
if you get that far,
you will find me close to reality,
like a character,
one you've known before
perhaps the ornament
which fell from your tree and shattered
or

if it's a rainy day
I'll be legs crossed in front
of a sliding glass door,
cooking my thoughts and plucking
unusually long and dark hairs
from my wrists.

or maybe my forehead will be
sweat-stuck to a desk and
gripping this pen
I'll be staring down the
pages in my lap
with a fever.