Yes, I’m Cupid’s apprentice. But
he’s the lucky one. He got love.

Therefore, with tousled locks
of golden hair he beats his wings
for maidens fair, fluttering o’er
woodland paths divine where
lovers walk with hands entwined.

The Queen of Hearts then sets him right.
She guides his arrows in certain flight.
Then all you singles now are wed,
lying as you are in Cupid’s bed.

I didn’t get love. I got words: nouns, verbs,
pronouns and adjectives. Relative clauses.

Not for me a shady grove, flowering garden
or courting bench. I was handed a writing tablet
and ordered to fill it with words, inch-by-inch.

So, with jumbled thoughts in fraught despair
I beat my pen for phrases fair. Down the page
and then back up, tasting rejection’s bitter cup.

I pray Mercury doth alight to make my words
steady and bright so I, a stranger, could taste
fame and be a man who’s mastered his game.

Tis true: The son of Venus never misses.
Yet I wait for Mercury to blow me kisses.