poem: Cuatro de Cinco

I say, I love you, I say, I will let you in.

and then I get scared, I run outside

to let the night sounds- owls, whip-poor-wills,

fireworks, anything-

anything that will abate this sense

of free-fall, this nervousness

whenever someone so much

as mentions your name around me.

Do they know? Is it obvious?

I hide you behind layers and behind brick

facades, pretending, until we know, or do not.

 

and what do they mean, those words?

poets for ages have argued their existence,

scientists say, we can explain some,

not all, of the madness. Here is what I think:

 

I give you the keys to choose

to hurt me, or heal me, from within,

to know the wilderness in my heart,

and tame a small parcel, as yours.

To hurt me, as I know you will, as

wayward human beings always have,

always will- hurt, with the best

and worst intentions, those whose

interior maze they can navigate by starlight.

 

Easy to say, why bother, at all? Abysses

were meant to be explored by the young

and uninjured. Yet there is this:

 

if you look in the right places, where pressure

turned into rock; sift enough stones

you will find a diamond

in your palm.

 

My I love you-

a license to destroy me, knowing

simply knowing, you will not. I know me.

I know you. You will choose to lift me instead;

I am giving you my faith that you will hurt no

more than necessary; that instead,

you will choose words, actions, thoughts even:

that cultivate the humanness, the messy reality

of this space; your taming will enhance,

not limit, growth of what is best in me.

 

I believe that we will find a space

where like respects like, difference

calls difference, diamonds are found in

tropical soils, and the reality is, there

is love that exists without exacting

a toll on the user. I always believed in the power

of starlight. I have faith, too, in you.

Reviews

[W.k.kortas]

What strikes me about this piece is the conscious eschewing of hearts and flowers; it is not love as purveyed by Currier and Ives or Hallmark, but love with all of its nagging fear and necessary accommodations, and, as such, it's one of the finest love poems I've ever had the pleasure of reading.