Love Poem
for Kristen
How does one love when the world
seems to be crumpling like a styrofoam cup,
all the structure melting into the air,
never to reassemble? These are the days
when animals eat their young and mother
rabbits reabsorb their litters, dissolving
tissue back into their bodies. And yet
here we are. You at the stove and me
behind you, hands on your hips, pressing
myself against you for the seventy-third time today
and you laugh and chase me away
knowing that I’ll always be back. You stir
and I add the seasonings and together
we feed a family. At night, in bed, we
fear again. But we also hold. Dreams
of what’s to come are the only thing
stronger than the nightmares of what’s to come.
There are children dying, other people’s
children, other people being shipped off
like returned Amazon packages, money
pooling like melted snow at the foot of the driveway,
each day a new outrage, a new danger, a new anxiety.
And every day, you. And every night, you.
And together we build a wall
around ourselves, around our children, around
this world that we’re creating. You and me,
a camp inside a wildfire — a small candle
inside an inferno. And it’s enough
knowing that you are there. Knowing
that all my dreams begin with sunrise
and end with you. At night, when my feathers
molt, you are my wings to reach the stars.
Everything is not okay, and I doubt it
ever will be. Today our happiness
is a fist in the face of a world gone mad.
You are my protest. To love in a time of hate
is to see the face of God.
*
Ars Poetica Futura
These words will likely
not reach you
like stars sending out unrequited
love letters for millions of light-
years
just emptiness and static and the cold
cold of the silent cosmos.
But I want you to know, if
these scratchings
and fragments find
you, that everything was not
cataclysmic, there have been
things
to smile about
and joy hidden amongst the fallen
leaves of empire
and the sad and holy embers
of a fire once stoked
to beauty
doused
and terrible lovely steam.
*
(Featured image from Pexels)