Lose Your Millions and Call Me

if only you
had been a poor man,
i could have stood to have you
see my books
as pieces of material,
i wouldn't have minded when your dirty
hands touched the page
and made it unreadable for the ticking
it now made when i try to concentrate on the words,
but you traded my brain
for bank bills.

i want to bring
you back to the store and return you
for a new edition
with new pages
so there can be room for new stains.

if only you had been a poor man
we could have clung to each other
for what we didn't have -
me to you for your thick skin
and way of seeing the world for roads
and maps and laws.
if only you had been a poor man,
i could have tolerated your love of old cars
and your need to spend
(maybe you would have travelled
further then,
maybe i would have called then).

instead we suffered through improper pronounciation,
use of semi-colans,
commas, parleying about greek gods,
your roomate interjecting where you
couldn't finish your sentences.
if only you had been poor man,
we could have clung to each other,
become ripe,
not known the page was stained
because the juices from our mouths
would have made it look new again.