Never Take Notes

Dedicated to Spot and Race

I sit cross-legged on the bed
and stare down at the alabaster
marble of his flesh, tracing
a new constellation onto
his back. His bangs cover
his closed eyes like a
golden gauze curtain.

My notebook lays open, but
blank at my other side, a
third wheel in the affair. I want
to describe him in detail so that
years from now, when gray hair
overthrows brown for superiority
and my memory falls victim to
Time’s ravages, I will find that
currently unborn poem and see this
moment and him as though I were
watching a movie in my mind.

Yet I have forsaken my pen,
letting my fingertips write nonsense
across his shoulder blades.