Open Letter To Eros by Simone Muench

I want a love that is imprecise, one
that sprawls over the bed, spills out windows,
disrupting churchgoers as they stroll
across the green glow of mowed lawns. I want
a love that commandeers the world, a bone-
clanking, hydrant-splashing, dog-
salivating affair. The ravaged and
the ravenous — those lycanthropes of lust.

No candy hearts or delicacies
of language. Do not ask me
to be demure, clean or to go
with the flow. I am electric.
I sprinkle poison
in the bird feeder, watch blue jays
fall like insatiable kisses.

I want fuck and prick
and cunt. Those delicious monosyllables
of want. I want you in a chair
handcuffed and desiring me so badly
even your feet are on fire. I want
love that is black as a highway
on a starless night, black as madness, sable
smooth and impenetrable. I want love
to write a love poem to me
with bad intentions.

Love is my nemesis,
my neurosurgeon, the unruly
child, the car that won’t steer
straight, the boy on a skateboard
carving the street
into attraction and repulsion.

I want a love that is contradictory, indelible
and edible, a love that relishes
imperfections and requisitions the moon.
A love that isn’t afraid of grief, sadness,
the small crimes we commit
against ourselves; love as cool
as a bruise, sensitive as skin
on eyelids, nipples and ears.

I want a love that listens:
to rain a half mile
before it hits the house; to the feather
brushing sound of morning glories as they close
their petals for rain’s arrival; the soft
shuffle of beetles as they begin a slow
crawl across the orchard into the sweet
red bellies of fallen apples.