“Your poems about the girls will still be around
50 years from now when the girls are gone,”
My editor phones me.

Dear editor:
the girls appear to be gone
already.

I know what you mean.

But give me one truly alive woman
tonight
walking across the floor toward me
And you can have all the poems.

The good ones
the bad ones
or any that I might write
after this one.

I know what you mean.

Do you know what I mean?

Charles Bukowski | Love is a dog from hell