I even have a piece of that look you gave me

the time I tried the macho pose

on the edge of the bed.

Or was it when we went to the arboretum

and I used my fakey british accent on the boys by the pond?

I carry it around everywhere

and somehow it never gets frayed

or creased in that ‘carried in the pocket’ sort of way.

I prefer it to the withered

and comatose eyes

with which you left me.

Or the barrier of sadistic machinery

that hopelessly imposed life on you.

When I look at it

I am reduced at once to a lonely

little boy, juxtaposed with solitude

on an faded asphalt matt.

And then somehow renewed

and reminded that I am