I've Dreamt of This Day Since I Was Twelve

“You gave me your finger?”
I asked you.

“It’s a gift,” you told me.
“You can keep it.”

I thought of Van Gogh and that
infamous earlobe he
gave an unimpressed whore.
What was her name again?

I looked at your bloody bandage
where the left pointer used to join your hand.
The tiny box in my palm, the finger felt
heavy and surprisingly solid
like a piece of cold lead pipe.

“What am I supposed to do with it?” I asked.

“Well,” you replied, “you could eat it. Love is like that.”

I wondered if Van Gogh was ever called a starving artist.