You wrote me letters, your tries at songs
I’d have to love (they came from you)
Always scrawled with that black fountain pen that longs
For a man of brighter inks, some hyperion yellow or electric blue.
And I, mole-like, kept them all,
Crunched them up, hid them in my secret nest
Until I had this one big You-Love-Me ball
Which made me feel (in secret) my eyes were brighter than the rest.
Sometimes I peek in there, even now
To make sure those horrid lyrics still exist;
I never read them—this my cat-brain (tail-up) won’t allow—
I just like to look at them, still crumpled from my fist.

I wonder sometimes, when I see your white hat float with hers,
If she actually likes your poems, or reads the words.