Of all the useless appendages,
your earlobe is the loveliest.
I’ve never nibbled on your tonsils
and know nothing of appendices.
I whisper and it stirs
the white down that grows there.
Like the soft sand of Normandy,
it’s the beachhead of my advance.
I order my words, and off
they go, over the top,
to take the cochlea,
the stirrup and anvil! With precision
and discipline, too, they charge.
But when you lob a glance at me and my nibbling lips,
everything scatters: my words, my thoughts; they wade, they drown, or get mowed down in the blood-drenched sand, and flap a useless arm in the wet muck, and wait for the tide to roll in and scour it all clean.
Later, alone and analytical,
I’ll ask what went wrong
and hear again the answer of the ages:
you were unprepared.
