4 November 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 3

Love Poem on a Monday Morning with Mock Complaints, Unreasonable Wishes, Your Name and the Earth for Good Measure

by PAUL GUEST

Darling, it's this binary morning futzing all

I'm trying to say. Clouds glide away.

The sun is pantomime. I can't understand

an atom of creation. I can't raise

the garage door with my mind,

the better to escape today's apocalypse,

the better to fade through all

America. I'm thinking of molten asphalt

and the rorid grass running beside

the roads like deer. I'm thinking of Las Vegas

because I'm thirsty, because

everything there is not free

at all and that's the precise spot

on the map we should marry

all our troubles. I'll complain of my bones,

I think it's safe to say

and I'll worry the miles

we never drive. I'll say your name

when I shouldn't

to every door barred before us

as if you're known in Belize to be the password

to tumble the last lock

and loose the last bolt.

Ruth, look at the sky peeping down

like an adjective for angels

I really don't want to use

so I won't. No one will promise me wings.

There is a simplicity

in such desire

I think you should love

but you don't.

To bravely want the sky is

to bravely want the sky

despite all the forecasts of rain and sleet

and, oh, yes, gravity,

to which we keep speaking

like vaguely lost travelers,

we are just passing through, we are just passing through.