I don’t mean to rank you out
as some kind of Haitian Sex Goddess
or Virtuous piece of Crescent trash,
the occasion never demands it,
but tonight I hate you, you lure me bitch,
and you are never precisely here. I love your friend
for taking you away, but I hate myself worse
for partially following, for the party demands a host
and I am the one
who skulks in the library
writing you a witless begrudged present
while you two in Boston
and these three in the kitchen
explode in a gigantic numbing flame
demanding my presence for purposes of Name— 
the great exasperating pretense
I have been granted on occasion and used
to ultimately distinguish the world
now betray this world this instant
writing you previously constructed memories
and doing false management to bring you near