1.

Love poems are Boring

Lines creaking old wagon wheels

Bitter tang of sprayed-on gold or gaudy sweet of colored syrups

A track skipping into infinity like a child with a new toy.

 

The tired phrases

“I need you.” “You are my everything.” “You complete me.”

“Love me back, love me back, love me back.”

 

2.

The track skips, a meeting, the brush of sunlight on lover’s lips

The sudden beating of a heart where there was naught but shadow before.

 

The struggle, the emptiness, cold cobwebs when they leave

A frosted finger halts the heart that was so recently born

 

And sometimes, the ecstasy, love requited, life returned

The center of your being made whole

 

3.

My heart was beating all along

No name broken into me with chisel and hammer or brushed with soft stroke of ink

No errant blow has broken it, nor gentle hand puzzled it together again.

 

I want to live a full life

Tear one rule from the text so I may read the rest composed

Crack the lurid painted stones to cut new teeth on crystal crowns

 

4.

I am not yours, I never was

Not his, nor hers, nor theirs, nor yours

I am my own story, whole and unerring.

 

5.

And I begin to understand why sirens push sailors’ heads beneath the waves,

Dodge grasping hands and panting tongues

Let the men bash themselves to pieces on precipices, uncaring stone

 

Leave me to my Anthemoessa

And let me sing in peace.