53.

Your arms are not a trope, and hyperbole

Would hang me just as well. Mobs do not write

Love poetry, and greeting cards try too hard,

And shards and slivers make swift dispatch.

Art is cruel when youth and beauty flees

And dogs grow testy amid ticks and fleas

While oblivion razes the guard of satire.

Tempests might bend us in the compass

Of an hour and sand might leave us

Like a ruin, but love, as embarrassing

As it sounds, will prove and stay. That does not

Mean that it will come with ease: au contraire

It will endure — these lines are not your hair.