DEAR JOHN

Somebody loves you,
I guess it’s your mother.
You never abandoned
her for another.
And if you had,
the love would remain
a mother’s love
is never in vain.
But the feelings
transferred from
woman to man
are temporal, fragile,
a fish upon land.
So now you’ve
decided I’m not
what you need.
You toss twenty years
like the books
that you read.

8-30-1987