Love?
Love was never here.
A sadly repulsive language;
It is as sordid
As a rain of meat
In the bare floodlights.
A tiny urge,
Her sweet fiddle,
His elaborate apparatus,
Their frantic symphony,
Our only will,
All are gone.
Ah yes. Love.
They cooked together.
The peach is never so luscious
As a boiled egg
Shared in the shining mist
Of spring love.
Oh, oh, oh, love!
Sing to me easy,
Pound me sweet,
You my worship, my only.
A boy drunk on my honey.
You cry out "Goddess!"
I say "No!
My bare legs are too white."
And we laugh,
Delirious friends,
Moaning in a love vision together,
Eat the smooth sea,
All over and always and still.
Yes, I love you.
Truly.
Please, Mother.
Your black stare
Drives me frantic.
Death is here,
Beneath the moment.
A spray of blood behind the bed,
A tremor of fear under my skin.
How ugly is our crushed egg.
I used to sweat and scream and shake.
What's the use.
I am a lifeless shadow,
A hard rock.
Picture beauty,
Yet none can live,
Beneath the trudge of iron void,
Not in so weak and repulsive a ship,
Just sitting here,
Chained in the rain,
Like some rust-shot sausage.
She is in love, so it is locked.
She must still be moon drunk
With the spring bare smell
Of the boy's legs
And the sweet gift of his cry.
Do you knock?
Do you call?
Do you shake the door?
Walk away.
You will not say what you want today.
Where is love?
Heading into the smooth, milky day,
An urge to swim in a lake hit me,
And as purple sweet juice
Sprayed from the knife,
I wanted to stop,
And smear it on my skin,
My tongue licking pink fingers.
Do you never think
Of driving away together,
Or of dressing all in red sometimes?
Can you not see
The orchard inside the apple?
You ask me about love.
Love is always here.
Hard inner realms, as of mist.
Copyright © 1995, Morrisa Stanfield Sherman.
This work may not be reproduced in any form without the author's
explicit permission
