12.26.2020

never approaching the shores of rapture

A love poem risks becoming a ruin, 
public, irretrievable, a form of tattooing,

while loss, being permanent,
can sustain a thousand documents.

Loss predominates in history,
smorgasbord of death, betrayal, heresy,

crime, contagion, deployment, divorce.
A writer could remain aboard

the ship of grief and thrive, never 
approaching the shores of rapture.

What can be said about elation
that the elated, seeking consolation

from their joy, will go to books for?
It's wiser and quicker to look for

a poem in the dentist's chair
than in the luxury suite where

eternal love, declared, turns out
to be eternal. Who cares about

a stranger's bliss? Thus the juncture
where I'm stalled, unaccustomed 

to integrity, despite your presence,
our tranquility, and every confidence.

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