by James Miraflor
I
My unfinished poems lie together
with the clutter of my finished poems,
like old friends waiting from afar.
They do not demand to be finished;
they are only to watch in awe,
in puzzlement, or in disgust,
the work that I did with my
finished poems.
But they,
who had been witness to the pains
the amoral world wrought me,
had been more loyal to me
than dogs can ever be to
their masters.
Had they been alive,
they would have loved me.
Had they been dead,
I would have seen my name printed
in their carcasses waiting
to be read.
But they will not leave me,
as human friends do of their
human friends,
or human lovers do of their
human lovers.
My friends,
they will not leave me.
II
Sometimes, when I'm alone,
I browse through them,
only to remember how
the savagery of my frailty
commanded them, in the
shrillest of voices,
to assert the last of
my humanity.
And the humanity I lacked,
they spoke of, in the most
human a way their aborted
existence could manage.
So much so,
that I imagine them
capable of love.
So much so,
that I could feel the last
of their life in the beat of
my heart.
