I Love
Lauren Reynolds

The worldly old man asked,
"What do you know
about love?"

I could see that love
had wrinked his tissue paper face,
and shortened his step. I
thought, maybe love came
hatchet wielding, trolley
driven, or any other way
that it died
inside him
to birth-in its absence-
Pools of wide eyes
that realize this convulsive gift.

But where is the peak
of love, where one climbs to
and says, "Aha,
Now this is love?"

As babies love, the everyday
Loves and love is in
the everyday.

Becaue I love sharp and ragged.
Because I love elliptical.
Because I love horizontal—on
Tightropes, Because I
Love infernal. I love Shepard, I love lucid, I love tenacious
and cultivating, I love brown bricked, white walled
Flirtatious. I love
unknowing and unknowingly.
I love in the face
of your denouncing
My love.
I love as a giant
in a child's body
as a god trampled
in an old man.

Because I love
I am.

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