those poems we talked about, sweetheart,
they're yours.
i'm sorry that it took me this long to know.
or to remember that i knew.
i did know before (i won't bore you
with my dissertation on
erotographic epistolary in the data age).
that other poem about property
is an isolated fragment of some other
conversation with some other person
which does not scratch the surface of
my notions of property
or propriety in use and
portrayal of the artist's loved ones.
love poems are perishable, like conversations
cut flowers and fruit picked for a gift,
perhaps they are given;
and their time is gone.