Only Love Has Its Way

Trinkets of solitude, seed-pearls
of wisdom follow me like small birds of
indecision,
how far do I go before I must turn back?
I've been here, but not quite yet.

In love with two men,
as different as the flowers of my servitude,
to whom do I owe my allegiance? Where do
I go when the last train has arrived and
there are no more excuses to be written
into a poem. No shadows of doubt or witnesses
to a holy conclusion or brief interlude, no matter
how ecstatic with revelation.

I dance the dance of my being, like a
leaf shivering on your tree branch,
my Beloved,
alms-scented
with the dark forest of optimism. Plunging
into your marrow, drawn to you.

I throw salt over my left shoulder, a proverbial Lot's wife,
reaffirming her kingdom of sea and sand, sky and
earth.
I offer my heart to the huntsman, afire with the love
of love. There are five
arrows in my quiver,
I draw back my bow
and kill you with this truth that is not the truth
dangling on my neck,
fierce and melodic,
bear claws and eagle feathers and strokes of genius
black-laced and
hanging like filigree chains of regret.

You play
the strings of my heart but you
are not here and my soul wings
its way to another sigh.