Love Me

Love me.
Do it by post,
semaphore,
or even by foot messenger.
(By the way,
I've moved.)

Poor drowsy tippler,
so sad for so little reason.
There are only a smattering of countries.
Don't you see, we can hardly avoid crashing into one another
at some point
if only we stop looking.

Remember when I read you
the poem about the falconer?
The widening gyre, and all of that?
You'll remember Yeats better for the way I recited it
with my tongue in your ear
and my finger lightly circling with every syllable.

One day, not soon,
I'll be giving myself a manicure with a jack knife,
having forgotten all my softer ways, when your signal will arrive.
Send love, little sparrow.
Send me your heart with a red silk ribbon tied around it.
Time is pitiless, and I need a tangible token
to prove that someone, once, looked for me

Even though I'm the way I am--
just bones and scrimshaw
in a language that whales know, and sing, and go...
to find harpoons that only hit us when we rise.
________

for Get Listed at Real Toads.