Three Love Poems For Your Valentine
A blade in the bouquet, a way / To cut your lover even / As she hands love over
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THE FLY Night refused to wait for a sign that day was dawning any trustworthier than one stiff slit winking in the blinds which up till then had kept the window’s wandering thoughts safely on the other side. I communicated my color to the mirror, but more than that I could not share. Comb for hair and soap for skin languished at the bathroom sink, but I did not comfort them there. Caught, in pillows propped, I littered the air with life, my breath softened with the slur of gentle thoughts. “If she won’t wake then I can’t work,” but it’s not the kind of thing you tell your boss. The web that stuck me to the bed seemed thin, about to break, stretched tight across a wind. I likewise seemed a fly. And so her arm, draped, her hair’s curious weight, tangled and tortured me to wait.
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POEM FOR SITTING IN THE COFFEE SHOP, WAITING FOR YOU TO GET OFF WORK Sitting somewhere else, hurting in the same spot Since the start, I’m staying alive until I see you again— That’s the plan and I think maybe That’s all it’s ever been, even since before The first time that we met—an illusion, Sure, but what isn’t in this scene?: A woman serving me whom I have Never met, as though she owes me Something when in fact it’s I who owe Her seven-ninety-nine (plus tax, plus tip) For this “Italian” drink, this “French” Croissant (places that I really doubt Exist), a face on the wall with hands which Everyone obeys, a pagan system For the days, a Christian for the years, A box of paper for my fingers and another For my tears, and words that sound like one Another for no reason in particular— Observable if not true, like how I sit And stay, alive until I see you— Just like the pain, in the same spot since the start, You have always been what’s beating in my heart.
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THE HEART LIES Writing is revenge. I want to cut. I am a hurtful poet. A Marlowe With a dagger in my doublet. But you, inexplicably, I would shield from every violence. I want to give you flowers And sweet foods and smile At you for hours. And I have The strangest intuition That even after a long while You would take these things From me without ever Looking for a place to hide A blade in the bouquet, a way To cut your lover even As she hands love over, Which I had previously Believed to be the point Of a love match: to see Who wins. But you seem to Accept gifts happily As a Trojan—and I have laid No traps. I would like to be kind To you. And, inexplicably, You are not cruel to me for that. I am a hurtful poet. But for you I lay my knife aside. The whole World is a stranger, who could stab At any time. For you I bare my ribs And point to where the heart lies.
Diane Kiezyczyk lives in Illinois.
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