To my poetics class, who all said they never use the L word.
Well, my young comrades
who tell me that you do not use the word,
I have lain awake
half this night beside my sleeping love
wondering. And now
as sleep reclaims me and my body aches
I think Love is blind
as a new kitten. What purpose is served?
Do you not wrestle the obdurate angel,
massive as granite,
for a glimpse of truth?
Do you not obsess after beauty?
Then in the name of what? O, I am too old
to deny the claims
of the infant Love God (who I think
Is a lot like you,
untargeted and with a world to win).