Here’s to all the books

I’ve never read

Whose titles bored me,

Or whose dialogue they said

Was dull or worse.

And here’s to all the things

I will not do before I’m dead,

To all the things that scare me

Or fill me with some kind

Of dread foreboding.

And let us not forget

The women who I will not fuck,

Whose chap-sticked lips

Will never wander down my neck

Whose fingers will not run amok.

Here’s to them all,

To the lives I’ll never live,

To the smiles I’ll never give

To strangers on the underground

Or worthy children bearing gifts.

Of all these sins absolve me

When I am dead

But most of all

Forgive me for the books I have not read.