Don’t Read This Note

you ask me for a song about love
like ones brides sing at weddings
my voice have never known a song
except groans and moans of the years
where for many nights I laid under
measly shadows with a heart
stuck in the garret of pain

let me give you your steak knives
find you some store-bought present
a loved one to give you your heart’s desire
a loved one who for lunch tomorrow
will give you an omelet, salad, and a chilled white wine
don't turn the page or look below the picture again

at night when the villagers come to close the curtains
they may retell the story with the stars
it is about how they see us from a distance

it is difficult to tell
whether you can read letters when they arrive
in distinctive hands

I heard someone say this morning
your cancer has returned, this time
to the brain, surgery impossible
no treatment under way

maybe, hair loss, bouts of sleeplessness
will return haunting ears of neighbors
when our store-bought present bleeds too
or when all trees are leafed out
we’ll come to know of the agitations at night,
and the exhaustion some of us endured
during our days under your roof