I Know What Love Ought To Be

I know what love isn’t, as it dispels itself;
fashion is blight, souls rabid, sex
unfinished.
Ideograms. Grandfather’s symbols.
Graphs.
Grimacing excitement.
I know what love isn’t, as it dispels itself;
isolation, Bold & The Beautiful,
socialites.
I know what love is, respelled color, ink at
the tips of our fingers.
Like a caretaker, attending in a hospice,
the rage of going unnaturally. Pink gums.
Romantic disgusts. Intimate distrusts.
I know what love is, expelled from me,
closer than arteries to me, uncertain,
complete, and dying.
I loathe you: too sexy, too perfect, too much
ink; to spell you, to trauma out, Days of Our
Lives.
I know what love isn’t, as it dispels itself:
I know what love is, respelled color, ink at
the tips of our fingers.
The piston mind, alligator hunger,
progression, the running from inevitability—
the moment, eyes filled, needing a Xanax.
I know what love ought to be:
doctoral/orgasmic eyes;
charming unpleasantries;
winking at incompatibilities—
made tremendous, clocks clicking, last rites.