I wrote this while I was working on my senior honors thesis in college: a collection of my best poems - which sucked. This poem came about as I was photocopying a bunch of poems at Kinkos at an ungodly hour. Romance at Kinko's 24 Hour A Day Copy Services Take a thin strip of paper, fold it in half, then bend the ends towards the crease in the middle: a heart, for you. Here, 24 hours a day I can fold hearts from the pages people have judged too light, too dark, off center and fit to be recycled. I could put together a kidnap-lettered poem using complementary gluesticks, connect a hundred thousand free paperclips into Rapunzel's hair, get my picture taken for a passport into your presence, to linger like sweeping green lights whose residue leaves perfect, clean copies. I've recruited 10 Grad Students from the U of M to write odes to you on the computers. Don't let them lie to you, they aren't working on thesis, pie charts, spreadsheets. They are writing about you, who are the Pagemaker, you who are the WordPerfect. They are writing about you, the spaces that you fill between the endless, lonely tickling of the keys that count desire at the tips of cold fingers. But can love stack here? Where people forget their originals, bind the work of their life, can this place or any where be about love? How many people will walk through the 24 hour a day doors of your life, leave their story face down on the glass, while you listen to the key counter keep track of the copies: 1, 2, 3? 1997

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