New Work

Comes Love

Comes love, nothing can be done.
—Joni Mitchell

Don’t blame Nietzsche or Camus,
whose mother died yesterday,

that he was the one who wanted
to throw his arms around the neck
of the little mare, inclined to dance
when the stallion was up and screaming.

For it was T. S. Eliot who showed him pace
and style, those women who came and went.

Then Roethke, his portrait of grace and hay
avoided noxious fireweed, so not a parable.

And garrulous Stern who loosened his tongue
and didn’t he already know how to sing,

he who was always falling in love
with shopgirls and barmaids,
as if they might somehow rescue each other.

Wasn’t it his own mother,
who never wore makeup or perfume,
just a bit of rouge on the bitten lips of a Sunday,
who said a kiss could have consequences.