Love is a blustery fellow. He takes me on carnival rides, swings me through air like a doll. I'm a doll with strings; I'm a puppet. I fly, I fall, I twitch.
Love is tall and thick
and loud. He orders me
about. I obey. I obey
for the joy of it, for
the thrill. Up we go,
and down again. When
Love leaves, he slams the door. The window crackles and breaks. For months,
for years, I gather slivers
of glass from the floor. Broken
glass. Yellow, blue. Red.
Love is bitter and cold, with eyes of blue fire. He shoves me away with one arm; pulls me close with the other. Leave me alone! he shouts, his lips caressing my ear.
We court with our fists, then comfort each other with tears. When he leaves, he takes nothing. He dreams that I weep in his closet, wrapped in his clothes.
Please do not assume that I am the speaker/ subject of my poems.
In these times of creative nonfiction and fictionalized memoirs, I think of the poem itself as true fiction: it is most likely not factual, but it must be true.
It is likely to be -- it is best if it is -- a truth I did not know before I wrote, and may not understand even then.
A poem is my way of discovering (dis-covering) what I feel; sometimes, what I think -- but it is not necessarily biographical.