All for Love

I have suspended disbelief today:
I don’t care — I have swallowed everything,
The crazy theories, that dumb song you sing,
The lies you told me when you went away,
The lies when you came back. I felt dismay,
But I pretended that your wandering
Was only what you said, lips hovering
Above my own. I whisper one word, “Stay.”

All lovers are the same since Adam fell,
On every evening watching the sun sink,
Bringing our too-engaged hearts to the brink.
I hoped ours was a tale poets would tell:
No lovers lived so great, or died so well,
But I will be alone by dawn, I think.

Amphimacers, Love, and Surds

Outside my window there are trees, and birds,
And a ravine. There might be a coyote,
Foxes, rabbits, the call, harsh and throaty,
Of the blue jays. My life comes in thirds:
The world outside my home, my friends, and words;
I worry more about hearing there's no tea
Than how rain falls. I'll see a man in a dhoti,
And ponder amphimacers, love, and surds.

I'm tired of yellow formentil and bluebonnets,
I do not care about the waves that billow,
The fate of humpback whales, the weeping willow,
Typhoons, or stories of a planet on its
Last legs. Just let me dream of Bach, and sonnets,
When I lay my head upon my pillow.

Entomology

To understand your sense of self, your soul,
Your dreams, I studied entomology:
I know that you’re a bug, a lesser flea,
A mental gnat, a pest at the water hole,
A nuisance housefly on a kaiser roll,
And when mosquitoes sucked the blood from me
I thought of you, a lousy bumblebee,
A fungus beetle on a mouldy knoll.

Giant worms grope my intestinal tract,
From which great streams of diseased blood have gushed,
But thinking of them only leaves me hushed,
While your existence forces me to act,
To search out every nasty, precious fact
About insect destruction. You’ll be crushed.