For five years I filled a light green
three ring binder with poems about you.
Each sheet chronologically archived
and dressed in clear plastic covers
to avoid the paper from being stained,
or damaged, or wounded by the bite
of the three hole punching machine.
Poems describing stares, kisses,
and the taste of sweat. An anthology
of lovemaking told in color and scents.
Poems about your hair and your breasts
and your thighs and how each of them
felt on my skin. Poems about fire and
dark nights filled with moon and stars.
It took five minutes on a night like that
to set the light green binder on fire.
Only the metal rings remained,
all three equally black and welded shut
small symbols of dead lovers moving on.
DQ 7/18/07
