Sketch by Holly Jones
I claim you like a pebble on a beach.
You are a smooth weight in my hand carried for a period of pleasure then forgotten,
captive in a dusty bottom drawer.
I claim you like a daisy from the ground.
Your tether is severed, so easily plucked,
to be tucked behind an ear to ornament my hair,
tossed away when wilted.
I claim you like an image from the internet.
Your pixilated likeness is consumed, subsumed and expelled.
After a le is closed for the final time does it cease to exist?
Your presence is transient; purpose to fulfil a fleeting whim.
You are temporary, disposable, faceless.
I am enduring, sumptuous, cardinal. Do men still bow if there is no queen watching?
Not yet, but they will.