Rather
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Imagine that I wrote five trillion times
In Latin, or in Sanskrit, or in Greek
Of Sappho, or in Shakespeare’s sonnet rhymes,
In Homer’s language on the newly sleek,
Mild surface of the sacrificial skins
Of calves, of vellum, using liquids like
The blood of human victims, ink like sins
Adultery would envy, with a spike
An Aztec priest would plunge in hard in love
For Huitzilopochtli, solar God who
Would die without this blood in blue above,
Unless hearts’ blood would spew.
Would all of this suffice to say how much
I love you? I would rather reach and touch.
~ Phillip Whidden