cover photo: herb nolanAfter Reading Neruda’s Twenty Love Songs That Are Fewer Than Our Years Together
by Albert DeGenova
Tonight I write the saddest lines
in the small of your back where
it is wet from my tongue
my finger shaping letters
against the nap of your
soft down that resists the words
we have loved and not loved
we have joined and released
fire feeding earth, air
breathing water, we
are a thunderstorm of
flesh against flesh, tongue
to tongue to rain to
ice to lightning ignited
and smiles exploded
teeth heavy as sleet
shaping words that are not
love not love are love
tonight I write the saddest lines
that mark the hours
of sleepless darkness staring
you cannot read the silly
silhouettes of vowels traced along your spine
the long weary line of
sometimes you love me
with venom, sometimes
laughing, sometimes dancing
over broken stones, sometimes
begging for the light
to be shut off, sometimes
you love me with sleep
tonight I write in the small
of your back, tracing your hip
with exclamations and questions
and sad ellipses and lonely
empty spaces between
I and love and you
so many words
when all you ask is quiet
~ previously published in The Blueing Hours (Virtual Artists Collective)
