This Time

A. P. Hebert

this time, won’t even settle for slant rhyme
if it means choosing each tired phrase over one no one else’d say
who listens to the words anyway?
just so that i’m sure you’ll hum along every time,
it ends with five to one every time.

this time, it’s all first person, dated and signed
from the space between my teeth and all the bad things that i dream
to that holy guise in your eyes
even if i’d write your name 1000 times in pretty lines,
i can’t help it if i say it funny every time