There they are. Those poems which prove
Nothing but that he failed at love.
They were all written to the same woman
Who wouldn’t listen.
Sometimes they rebuked,
And sometimes they pleaded.
The more these poems are contextualized,
The less they are needed.
The more we read these poems
The more we demand to see
Not his pitiful anguish,
But her beauty.
The art is her, lingering behind
This clever speech. This obliterated mind.