READER RESPONSE

What do you use me for, my dear?

To augment your vision, expand

the topics of your conversation,

tell your friends about the woman

you are reading now (as if you had

conquered me by deciphering a few

erotic verses). Let this poem

be witness: verse is the antithesis

of communication. Knowing me this way

is not knowing me at all.

But if you've learned anything from

reading me, you should be asking now

how I use you. Oh my dear -

augmenting my stores, delineating

the topics of my conversation,

hearing echoes of what you see of me

in reading me now. But by now

both of us have engrained this truth:

Verse is the antithesis of communication.

I pretend to know you but have made you up.