I knew I should have collected
what I could
from the table
of our one and only date.

The glass kissed your lipstick traces
and the bread crumbs probably contained
relevant elements of your saliva.
The napkin on your lap
once held some of your warmth
and certainly a strand or two of your hair.

So much of you
could have been mine
after that relative instant
of our evening together.

The silverware wouldn’t have helped me much, though:
The blood on the fork
was mostly from my neck
and anything found on the steak knives
came exclusively from the waitstaff.

Any and all that genetic matter
could have been kept, though,
had I been careful
and, modern technology being what it is,
I might well have been able
to clone everyone back to perfect health.

If I’d only saved the materiel…
hence my regret.