if

but i never swallowed love entire, as i sometimes relished macchiatos
sweetbreads in a caramel confection, or thought it savory, or sweet,
and when i diddled with my fiddle ferns, conversed with hovering harpies
it was an ever constant meddler, drawing gasps from even mock-flies
come burrowing in the grass

i never sat bewitched behind my bedroom window, waiting for some
fledgling enamorato, a mancini string to draw me with its grasping
shimmer, or brought my polka to a scented parlor, where i might display,
with all due artifice, my shallow glamours, for it rankles like a summer folly
demanding a cavort when a simple arabesque should do

and so i watched you, in your jitterbug retreat, a lucy-boy all jingly
with some desi cucarachas, making shimmy-shimmy 2-steps, making
disco twists, and i may steal your youth away, leave you howling
at the bottom of the stairs, leave you to drape my ancient mirrors,
thieve my whiskey in the night

i was a famous trickster, hawking potions at the door, selling coochie
to bewildered farmers come carousing in the town, but i loved
the night too much, loved too much that all days end with tea and
shelley winters, but i never swallowed love entire, or gave you bon-bons
when your sleep believed in death

yes, if i remember you, i may steal your youth away