I have crossed out
this sentence
so many times
before
when I first
heard it as
a fragment
spoken in the
staccato
of pebbles
on water
when I tripped
over it
on the way to
an early
show
when I unexpectedly
open the
door and saw your
best clown
sad face
when the late
orange light
had chased
the last doubts
away
when the
floorboards became
unforgiving
and when
creaking bones
answered more
questions than
were asked
when I sought
solace in
the number of
digits I had
to present
and when the world
was more than
just an accumulation
of weak
atomic
surface tensions
when it began
to sink into
my
/fractured
/vacuum
that a good
command of
language was...
was...
when I decided
to offer you
this last
banal
sentence
instead