Detecting Love

Suspect the anonymous love letters
that sashay into your mailbox at midnight.

It is elementary, my dear,
to remember that simple affection
burns the skin,
will brand you, flesh smoking
with a powerful show of force

like extradition
after conviction
and the discovery of betrayal
at the scene of another
bloody crime.

Closing the Shop

It is time to close the shop
where the undertow of pleasure
abruptly disappears into darkness
and what some women call the end.

The signs are simple.
The spine curls forward.
Hands pose on the lap. Feet cross
daintily at the ankles.

Wrinkles
and worried looks are all part of
the way the flock of old birds gather
waiting uninformed for death.

Release

In the aftermath of all this grief
I have begun to drape myself in inquiry.

This black mourning for the signature
that identified my words with beauty
is the crosshatching I have needed to escape
the obtuse and unfeeling magnets of light.

If I cry again
maybe this time I will release the poison
like a waterway after the thawing snows.

In the aftermath of all this grief
I will ask the hardest questions
so that I might understand
what I've always missed before.

Justification

When it is time to justify everything
I know you will be grasping at every word.

You are not the braggart
or the man with too much ego.
You are not the undernourished soul
who needs to be rescued.
You are not the crazy
who forgets his manners and swears
this is the end.

You are different than anyone
I have ever known.

When it comes to justifying joy,
come into to kitchen.

Sit down.

It is time to talk.