Many women will write poetry
from you. They will turn
your nose into an apostrophe,
your smile into the front side
of the parentheses and by the back
they will put you in tears
you once admitted to me. They
will filter your father's ashes
into the adverbs that define
your fingers quaking along skin
and bone and fibrous paper.
They will dismiss your flaws
as an improperly placed comma,
a period born before its time.
They will perfect you, inspect you,
and infect you with emotions
you never learned to muster.
But none of them will know
you as I did: a boy, bent
beneath the waves of love
and glad for it.