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Description

To the man out of sight:

Somebody took your manuscript,

That book written on an inch and a half of crisp paper

and bound by a single silver ring,

with printing instructions at the margin:

Calibri, font ten, single-spaced, italics.

Somebody took it when you listlessly left the table

you've been vandalizing for nine minutes.

Were you lost

in your literature and ink,

as I were in your hands and paper skin?

Ironic, though, it never occurred to me

that I missed your face but my mind defended:

It was because of my reassurance of time to waste.

Though in retrospect, I doubt you were real

while I drink a bottle of sighs, as if I knew how to be drunk—

swaying and laughing, and feeling the blood

on my cheeks— in a cordial delight.

You did not even bother to return

and search for your unpublished work anyway

as I never bothered to know anything further.

(In the end, you might be a figment of my imagination

as I am in the fiction you live in.)

Sincerely,

Out of Character.

P.S. Did your working title really said

Until Death Do We Rhyme?

Description

To the man out of sight:

Somebody took your manuscript,

That book written on an inch and a half of crisp paper

and bound by a single silver ring,

with printing instructions at the margin:

Calibri, font ten, single-spaced, italics.

Somebody took it when you listlessly left the table

you've been vandalizing for nine minutes.

Were you lost

in your literature and ink,

as I were in your hands and paper skin?

Ironic, though, it never occurred to me

that I missed your face but my mind defended:

It was because of my reassurance of time to waste.

Though in retrospect, I doubt you were real

while I drink a bottle of sighs, as if I knew how to be drunk—

swaying and laughing, and feeling the blood

on my cheeks— in a cordial delight.

You did not even bother to return

and search for your unpublished work anyway

as I never bothered to know anything further.

(In the end, you might be a figment of my imagination

as I am in the fiction you live in.)

Sincerely,

Out of Character.

P.S. Did your working title really said

Until Death Do We Rhyme?