Love Poem
I have forgotten
more than most women
know of how
the body yearns.
Late night, my poems of you
are read out loud
in strange women’s
bedrooms. My words
cling to their tongues like
the sweet heat of
penny candy.
They can’t stand it!
Still, they want more
and they refuse to spit you out.
Isn’t that how love is?
They question themselves
as they recycle each line
while, maybe, a tabbycat
presses closer
beneath the sheet and digs
in familiar places.
Women wonder: Is it their
lack of something or just
their misfortune
for never having met
someone like you?
And they lean hard against
the porcelain sink, night gown
clinging to damp thighs,
as they scrub the syrup
off their teeth.
Isn’t that how love is?
So tonight, while you are
too far from me,
I write this poem
and somewhere,
some woman,
someday
will read it
and tell herself that
she will ask for
nothing more,
ever, if she is given the
chance to be close enough
to press an ear against her
own lover's chest,
close enough, to lose count
of the rhythm of a heart that
only beats for her, close enough
to breath in his exhale--
grateful for the gift of it.
Because isn’t that how love is?
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