Love Letters In The Internet Age

In my dream you have no hands
We stand together on a cliff.
I stretch my long arms wide around you,
My ribs and my hips are narrow and delicate,
My hands spread flat and strong behind you
heavily hanging off my wrists- like insults
I try to hide them. He said ‘Poets have always been published

The ‘you’ in the sonnet has always been universal and personal at once.
There’s the 'you-who-was-stripped-by-the-poet'
Of your white petticoats and corset, by candlelight.
And there’s another you- 'you-reading-it.'

You picked it up, a poem written in ink and smudged by rain
Blowing on the wind near a theater.
You are less beautiful in person than you are on the page.
You lady, might be reading about yourself.
You inspired and slept with and angered the poet.
These are not so special-
The love letters of the internet age- they are not a part of the new narcissism. I mean,

Since the beginning of poems it's always been possible
to nail the note to a tree
Along side a path where you know she will pass.

Some pointers: It does need to be a tree
Where once you stood together
And discussed how, should you ever send a love letter,
You would nail it to this tree
And she should keep an eye out just in case.

When you leave it its for her and not for her at once,
Since you will never come back to see if she’s left you a response.

A secret: those dreams, they aren’t yours.
You never were seen handless in my dreams, we never stood on a cliff.
Poems are easier than essays and prettier than anger.

Some pointers: the way to read this poem
Is to be every single YOU at once.

A secret: There are many of you and though it was you who was handless in my dream
You reminded me of him, the way you didn’t move and didn’t meet my eye
And had thin biteable lips. And I felt
Guilty like a thief but glad to be a thief. And I woke up thinking of him
But this poem is for you.