10. A Love Song to J. Alfred Prufrock

I wonder what the “J” stood for.

He was probably James or John—

but could he have been Jacob, Jeffery, Jeremy,

Jeremiah, Jay, or Johann?

If to say he was afraid was to abbreviate,

I wonder what emotion would cascade

across his mind uninvited;

I wonder if he should truly have stayed silent.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

if he had left the house that evening standing tall,

the bald spot where his hair was growing thin

balanced by an earnest, gleeful grin?

I wish I could have told him,

“I, too, have gone at dusk through narrow streets

and watched the smoke that rises from the pipes—

I, too, am one acquainted with the night.”

This amuses me and I think it has potential. However, it, too, needs more stanzas. It just kept falling into more and more form as I wrote it. I think a genuine love song to J. Alfie would be awesome, but this poem isn't it yet. Another three stanzas could do it, though. Also, the second person. Because no one writes apostrophe in the third freaggin person.