rsvp

[David_Kaine]

trying new things, as per usual. let me know if this one does not work (i can't for the life of me tell). poem below...

This is interesting to me because who is to say how long a line should be? It doesnt look like a poem and I think that doesnt help.  However, what I'm seeing is a book about a person who likes poetry, and every now and then has an inner monologue rant using poetic elements.  Not an interjection of a poem in a book, not quite prose, im just going to open it up here as an alternative way to read it without changing any words.





my aunt writes gorgeous love poetry, and i wish    ( I think you can leave your aunt out. She might have inspired it but  dont think she adds to it)
i could do the same so fiercely 
my skin prickles around 
the want. i wish 

to write you pretty words with such an intensity 
the thin tendons of my shoulders pluck 
themselves at the thought of it. what 
can i offer you in exchange for this warmth? only a recounting: you 

were on me and all in 
my vision was sunlight. i want 
to give you beauty; i wish 
to stamp the fine lines of 
some mundane pretty wordshapes  (wordshapes is strange, likes mouth shapes for speaking?)
into my fingerprints and trace them 
on the outline of you, there, and 
there, and there– 

all this to say i do not know how to begin this poem, that 
i cannot begin until it is upon me, as we (i love this until it is upon me)
learned on the floor at 4 in the dim 
cool morning and again at 11 in the first 
frost and again at 8 pm on a 
wednesday like any other wednesday. i am 
no good at verbalizing, so instead i pause, and you wait 
beside me. your patience is astounding, and all i have 
to give to you, then, is more words (only some of 
them pretty). write our names in the same ink, 
please, boy, or i will spin; i will lose my unseen fieldcurve 
and the soft dark iron filaments cooperating into the shape of me 
will split in all directions. the warmth (last three lines could even stand alone as a poem i think woth editing)

is yours, and also it is mine 
to gift back to you when you will take it, when i 
have time to give. maybe 
there is no exchange more than the back-pass-and-forth 
of your cold hands on me and likewise, in the 
other direction. your words come easy and 
with thought and i find them mesmerizing. try to breathe, 
boy– your time is mine too–

Try to breathe, nice.  I hope this helps