Is This Why Love Almost Rhymes with Dumb?
       

In love there's many obstacles
like in summer trying to protect an icicle,
the ship a wreck, the surf a debacle,
so sometimes love seems to deserve distain
like tarnish brought on by rain,
the rain of course standing in for tears,
all the bitterness and self-accusing fears
of other relationships fucked-up for years.
The fissures open in the dull afternoon hours
but it's time to throw away those wilted flowers,
get some air, ride a bike, take a shower.
When we split, friends tell us to feel relieved,
a message we no better receive
than wanting to stay in the bar but told to leave.
Now the head hurts like a mean monkey,
worries about getting old, no money,
wanting right now to be buried like a pharaoh in honey.
Let's not drag this all out another time,
even at midnight the bells know when to stop their chime,
even given the dictates of rhyme
that make outcomes so predictable, fated,
you'd think we'd all be more jaded
and not feel so overcome, overrun, raided.
But, darling, does it have to be so?
Take those coupling hawks which every which way go,
one dive-bombing, one on thermals rising slow
yet tumbling together they won't separate.
Admit it, you're forever my mate,
at each dawn alarm and no matter how hurryingly late,
after sunset for an hour or two
the world always seems to glow more you.
Maybe the glue won't waggle completely loose,
my arms still churn me through the pool,
everyone knows I've always been a fool.
Maybe I'll have a ham and cheese sandwich
or skip lunch altogether hardly matters which
if only I could breathe without a hitch.
I could become nothing but a shadow
or try to learn to take it slow
and not into panic everything throw,
sit for a week with uncrazy expectations,
not be seasick on seesaw contradictory revelations,
write nothing new, just make emendations,
aim for the perfect footnote,
come up with one good joke,
stop sinking like uranium but like goose-feather float.
We still love each other, always will
even though sometimes the other we half want to kill.
Two things at least are certain: there's no pill
and of you I'll never get my fill.

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Copyright © 2011 Dean Young All rights reserved
from Fall Higher
Copper Canyon Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission