hemingway's butterfly

guess i’m a poet now

if never was i one before

with poems as my masters

for i cannot write anymore

words too are like lovers sly

they lure you in and then evade you

enslave you and then break you

seduce you and then reduce you to

                        to a mendicant mindlessly wandering

and now all i can do is agonize

over the poems in your words

that you don’t even notice

won’t care to record

and i’m itching to write

them down, but  they’re not mine

they’re yours

and i’d like to believe

that i’m just a poet

not yet a thief

and you

you’re a photographer

since the shifting light leaves you in raptures

surrounded by images you cannot capture

agonizing over moments lost

and yet mindless

of your captions and descriptions –

poems carelessly tossed

and while i cringe

at how they’ll be gone

they have no power over you – quite none