Readings

Do not read your words to me poet
In your demotic regional dialect; pitched a key too high
Rushing the pauses and mis-timing the delicate rhymes

For I have heard you say them a hundred times
and your voice was butter, deep as a well
with a tiny catch on the second to last line
I am in love with your voice poet

I would not care to see you, hot from speaking
and bonhomie and smothered by e-bay autograph hounds;
on-trend and wised-up from some
high-brow sunday supplement

whilst I...I have already traced my finger
across your delicate lips, In the secrecy
of a soundless room, I have kissed your ink spotted fingers
and the wetness at the corners of your eyes
I am in love with your eyes poet

Please do not attempt to explain
each subliminal symbol; the metaphors
and similes you have used;
How the interplay between imagery
and emotion tricks the brain

I have long since deciphered your riddles
broken the code; divined the hidden messages
meant for me alone, you don't know it yet but
you are in love with me, poet