To my first follower*

This will be a love poem,
for all poems are love poems.
Fast love is the way of poets,
and are we not poets, you and I?

So my hater of titles, my quicksilver bird,
my dreamer of stars, my monochrome tulip,
my lover of the ugly, my age-cracked china,
barely sixteen and world-weary,
invisible but trapped in your own shadow,

this is my poem to tell you
that all the words of Petrarch
    and every sonnet of Shakespeare
    could not describe your radiance,
that you're worth more than
    all the gold that slumbers
    in warmth beneath the earth,
that one day you'll lie in a meadow
    with the cool breeze bringing the
    smell of salt to your nose,
    and wonder when the constellations
    got so bright.

You'll not believe a word,
but yet here I am,
writing you a love poem.