Is this all we are--love
contagious, always
with fevers passing
in troubled sleep
stretching from beach to beach,
no waves
or land to reach
____
I would rather be a pillar, a symbol of
my own strength
than combined tapestry, love for
someone else's art
I am surrogate love, bred with a
champion runner's heart
and a bloodline's tracks
__________________
love, who were you
to barge down doors
to appease
to please me
to refuse flowers, how can you
turn me away, your attention spans
between video games, movies, or
work
you'd rather say--love takes time, and I need
time, to know myself
but you are as shallow as your
affinities,
you have nothing
you have nothing
to share--no way to explain
who you are--you are
that which can fill in small cracks
and crevices, like Elmer's glue
but really, you are as porous as
a broken jar, holding dirt
swept from the garage, stored
on a shelf, pretty, waiting
long, for something new.
__________________________
it lives purely in a woman's heart,
this companion
who dies of a porous heart
