Friday, November 21, 2014

This is not a love poem

















This is not a love poem. That would be
a euphemism. This is a poem about a girl 
who threw herself into the river 
without being able to see the other shore
just because she loved the way the water felt
against her skin (which was pressing, which was

moving forward and forward
like fire along a trail of gasoline.) Or this is a poem about
a deer who accidentally became attached
to a lion. And sometimes she daydreams about the jungle.
Are there any jungle deer? she wonders, as she strokes
the lion’s paw and tells him stories

to make this lion’s heart slow down. Or. This 
is a poem about a man who only wanted, all his life,
nothing more than a mountain 
home. A rustic one, full of maple syrup and old books 
and a stove that lights if you yell at it right. 
And the woman waiting in the bathtub 

with a candle. And the dog who likes to be 
wrestled. And in the end of the poem the man 
is there, the smell of pancakes in his nose and winter 
humming outside in the trees. 

And the man can’t bear it. 

That terrifying realization: what he has
is finally what he wants, 
and that’s it. That’s all.  

You have the mountain home. You have
the impossible sunrise. The only thing left
is to put your guard down and rise up coolly,
like the moon itself—

You can turn as old as you want to
but I’ll still be the one by the shore
with my hand outstretched.