All girls should have a poem
written for them even if
we have to turn this God-damn world
upside down to do it

Love’s not the way to treat a friend.
I wouldn’t wish that on you. I don’t
want to see your eyes forgotten
on a rainy day, lost in the endless purse
of those who can remember nothing.

Love’s not the way to treat a friend.
I don’t want to see you end up that way
with your body being poured like wounded
marble into the architecture of those who make
bridges out of crippled birds.

Love’s not the way to treat a friend.
There are so many better things for you
than to see your feelings sold
as magic lanterns to somebody whose body
casts no light.

It seemed
like years
before
I picked
a bouquet
of kisses
off her mouth
and put them
into a dawn-colored vase
in
my
heart.

But
the wait
was worth it.

Because
I
was
in love.

I have emotions
that are like newspapers that
     read themselves. 

I go for days at a time
trapped in the want ads. 

I feel as if I am an ad
for the sale of a haunted house: 

     18 rooms
     $37,000
     I’m yours
     ghosts and all. 

                    Tokyo
               June 2, 1976

Driving through
hot brushy country
the late autumn,
I saw a hawk
crucified on a
barbed-wire fence.

I guess as a kind
of advertisement
to other hawks,
saying from the pages
of a leading women’s
magazine,

“She’s beautiful,
but burn all the maps
to your body.
I’m not here
of my own choosing.”

she tries to get things
out of men
that she can’t get
because she’s not
15% prettier

Spinning like a ghost
on the bottom of a
top,
I’m haunted by all
the space that I
will live without
you.

When
you wake up
from death,
you will find yourself
in my arms,
and
I will be
kissing you,
and
I
will be crying.

We stopped at perfect days
and got out of the car.
The wind glanced at her hair.
It was as simple as that.
I turned to say something—

Love’s not the way to treat a friend.
I wouldn’t wish that on you. I don’t
want to see your eyes forgotten
on a rainy day, lost in the endless purse
of those who can remember nothing.

Love’s not the way to treat a friend.
I don’t want to see you end up that way
with your body being poured like wounded
marble into the architecture of those who make
bridges out of crippled birds.

Love’s not the way to treat a friend.
There are so many better things for you
than to see your feelings sold
as magic lanterns to somebody whose body
casts no light.