Better Spent Time

I am listening to your day-tales,
though I wonder that
this time might be better spent

mistranslating health warnings
from foreign cigarettes and
pasting them to a gallery wall

or, perhaps,

composing a biro haiku
on the arch of a foot, proclaiming:

    there is a tunnel
    between your skin and the ground
    for kisses to crawl.

I could be weaving a perpetual motion machine
from the hair of the girl in the typing pool
(she calls herself Rapunzel
and waits by a lidded phone
for no one to ring);

I could be staring at the sky as if it was a
Mercator map of the world,
firing an arrow like a pin
to pick the cloud
I would land upon.

I could, but I am here instead
with the heavy end of your day,
which is a quieter way to whisper
how I like you.