Sometime before the beginning of love
I waited for patience, spending time
When I wanted to be saving money.
Then one evening over a glass of water
I balanced my calendar to discover it was the end of youth.
And love hadn't even started yet, only this sestina.

If it was no longer the beginning of this sestina
I would age from thirst if I started spending love
Gusting like the winds saving youth
Who, in the crow's nest, with a spyglass of time,
Scanned the horizon for the end of water.
And ate the rest of its money

If it were the beginning of money,
Would I drink empty bottles, poor, spending this sestina
With hope and utilities disconnected, saving water,
Depressed, gazing into a cracked lookingglass of love?
It would be just me, my lousy credit, and the end of time.
So much for my chance to youth.

If I had placed bets on the beginning of youth
When I wandered a casino of fountains spending money
On devices which guaranteed saving time
From sinking in the quicksand hourglass of this sestina,
By the time rainclouds postponed the end of love
It would have been dead sand in the garden we water.

If I pour from the clock the beginning of water
Hard rains will erase the dunes where we were spending youth
Working as life guards saving love
From drowning, bringing it around with a glass of money.
But there would come the end of this sestina
And then we would have nothing to time.

If, at the beginning of time,
We wrung our wallets, spending water,
And poured our ink out together saving this sestina
From walking barefoot across the shattered glass of youth,
Maybe we wouldn't so fear the end of money.
Maybe then we could reuse return recycle or love.

But, like a tarantula, time squashed youth
And poured water all over its burning money
And chose this sestina over love.