Text Heredeclares the brash
teenage graffiti lavished across
a flaky concrete bridge
support in the rushing shallows
of rocky Snake River,
the runaway red
of its spray paint manifesto
demanding we espouse
unbounded passion and renounce
the rules of spelling.
Early June, like a shy crush
in a blouse of morning vapor
has at last warmed to us.
Wrecked bouquets
of gray driftwood sprawl
in salacious disarray
on the riverbank.
Luminous orange lichen
embosses lost offerings
of eroded stone deposits.
Gnats skim the scum
of sun from mud pools.
Below a maroon peace symbol,
bold sunflowers bundle
unfolding souls, sprouting
soda bottle memorials
where “Davis” overdosed.
Shaggy unemployed dad
in Giants cap, his adopted
Korean daughter with
sly smile, and I consider
the seasonal question:
Do the best lovers
possess bravado or brains?
Does daredevil or don
yank the steam whistle chain
on your love engine,
loud and long? If your
eastbound lover
leaves at noon, the westbound
one hours before,
chugging at half the speed,
which crashes on failed brakes
through the foolhardy
roundhouse of your outlaw heart
first? Everyone knows
love whirlpools your brain
into a spawn of surplus
syllables, a spring flood
of rogue vowels hemorrhaging
from your mouth. Love is
the mistake you
feel compelled to keep making,
the winged motto
you botch with every
spasm of overcorrections
but must see to the end,
your juddering arm
and tacky red fingerprints
marring every bare place
you keep saying you won’t touch
as others saunter past,
gawking and chuckling
at your jabbering masterstroke.
Maybe you, love’s passenger,
instead of scrawling clumsy creeds
over others to mark them
personal property, you should
wait alongside the crush
of the current, listening
for devoted love riding
all night through sagebrush
and shantytowns on the Overland
Asymptotic Express, dawn
vandalizing the sky in reckless
flourishes of bloody gold.
You could live solely on
the promise of love’s distant
rolling approach, knowing
when its roaming roar thunders
overhead it will awaken
all your desires and fears.
Maybe you will wait all day,
or tomorrow, maybe all your years.