Page 13 - A Qualified Acceptance of Sorrow

If You Were You
For Vincenzo

to the whore who took my poems – Charles Bukowski
My poems are my prayers – Carlo Corvi

“If you were you,
not some down and out Charlie,
well then maybe remorse would creep in
on Sandburg's cat's paws,
dismay seep across the page like fog,”

she said this,
her angular body clothed simply:
the word “pisces”
tattooed below her hara
centimeters above her pubes.

Her left arm angled
behind her, the tips
of fanned paper
trembled
beyond her right hip's curve.

“Remorse, that these
are all I'll ever have of you
...I'll never be your Eloise
the beginning of your misfortune;
falling steeply
through layers of words
into that place of meeting, that passion
mistakenly labeled sin

I only take what is right
fully mine,
these words resonate
within the chambers of my shell –
my heart, once shattered

opens to receive them

don't whine about money
or left arms
my body's not for sale
having long ceased to be mine