Amy is not enough; I also want Sue,
Stella, Laura, Beatrice—because I can’t have you.
Stoop down, read the whole list, and if you’re not there,
Stooping has not been in vain—not listed belongs to the list of care.
What stays only is what stays with me.
O Look about you, if there is no sign of me,
Read! I am secretly signaling you in my poetry.
Read carefully the whole list
Of muses—whom poets pretended to have kissed.
The fact that you don’t see your name
Pleases me: your absent love is how I will build my fame,
And your knowledge that you don’t exist
Is how everything that lives loves—by being missed.
No! Not Amy am I missing.
The world doesn’t know you’re the one I’m kissing,
If only in my mind—
Where poetry lives—for you—who was unkind.
