Not Love (A Sestina)

Yes, I would rather sleep alone than fight


and this is why I sleep alone. A drunk?


Not too late, my first last career. I write,


suits the job. Alone, I am a word sea


dotted with empty bottles. As for sex,


I vaguely recall. I liked it with you. Love—

damn that beast! No prerequisite for love.


It needs nothing, not even us. Why fight


when I could sleep on it, on you, have sex


in a dream with a belligerent drunk,


then wake to your gentle coffee? Your sea


is still my sea, though “you’re right,” I won’t write.

I am saying, dear, who gives a text? Write


what you want, or don’t write at all. I love


our love for its constance despite us, sea


change after spare change. I don’t have the fight


that you need to keep you in check, no drunk


fists, battle scars. I choose sleep over sex. 

No, our tongues will never touch again. Sex,


I would trade for one sentence from you. Write


of love that’s sailed with no plan for port. Drunk


on wine or waiting, I remain your love,


still mute, still dumb. No hope, no cash, no fight.


I remain your love across idiot seas.

Poets write this way and so do drunks. Sea!


Grief! Lost shoes! The Titian mound of her sex!


Laugh with me. I have given up the fight.


This sweaty, besotted poet who writes


limericks ’round wounds? She bleats of you, love.


Yes, you have rankled this poet, this drunk, 

so she will no more speak of what was. Drunk


on my bitter horsetail brew. Allons-y,


and see what I mean? What lasts: only love.


No sail or oars, she’ll stay afloat. But sex


we have some say in, still. Don’t you dare write


of her, on my side of the bed. I’ll fight

only then, bar fight in my brain. I’m drunk


on waiting for you to write. Heart at sea,


no due course. Sex, we have some say. Not love.