If love were a bargain

And you weren’t supposed
to be thinking these things—
nothing charitable in this direction,
nothing to encourage a strengthening
of this strand loosely woven
between two minds
(of hearts we won’t speak).
Calling up
little-promising proofs
was supposed to require a pot
of coffee and a dozen donuts
(twelve more free with coupon—
oh if love were such a bargain—
with six you get eggroll,
but one doesn’t mean
two necessarily.
There are motions to make,
bargains to plea, evidences to show...);
and there should have been more
days of snow, more mornings
punctuated by the hiss and clank
of the radiator that left rust stains
on dirty, grey carpeting.
The landscape should
have remained
that steely-blue grey, the color of eyes
too long used to the cold.
Perhaps we could have redecorated,
added a splash of Dante red
and delineated the boundaries
of the inner sanctum, to match
the tomato sauce spilled from pizza.
But green had to begin,
and the sun could stay away no longer.
They would collaborate,
those happy fellas,
to send small hopes,
kept in enameled boxes,
up and out and up into the sky.


written 4.25.97
revised 2.28.07

© 2007 ElenaMarie