"sometimes what it looks like is all anyone can see."

Acts of Love by Pam Rehm

If endear is earned 

and is meant to identify   

two halves 

then it composes   

one meaning 

which means   

a token 

a knot   

a note 

a noting in the head   

of how it feels 

to have your heart   

be the dear one

"Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.”

“To the Student Who Asked Why He Earned a 'C' on an Essay about Love”

Because love has its own grammar,
its own sentences,
some that run-on too long,
others just fragments.
It uses a language
not always appropriate
or too informal,
and often lacks clarity.

Love is punctuated all wrong,
changes tenses abruptly,
relies heavily
on the first person,
can be redundant,
awkward,
full of unnecessary repetition.

Every word is compounded.
Every phrase, transitional.

Love doesn’t always know the difference
between lie and lay,
its introductions sometimes
lack a well-developed thesis,
its claims go unfounded,
its ad-hominem attacks
call in question
its authority.

With a style that’s inconsistent,
a voice either too critical
or too passive,
love is a rough draft
in constant need of revision,
whose conclusion
rarely gives any sense
of closure,
or reveals the lingering
possibilities of a topic
that always expects high praise,
and more often than not
fails to be anything
but average.

OMM: Ignorance

"You can't count the mistakes you didn't know you made."

Goldfish are ordinary

 At the pet store on Court Street,

I search for the perfect fish.

The black moor, the blue damsel,

cichlids and neons. Something

to distract your sadness, something

you don’t need to love you back.

Maybe a goldfish, the flaring tail,

orange, red-capped, pearled body,

the darting translucence? Goldfish

are ordinary, the boy selling fish

says to me. I turn back to the tank,

all of this grace and brilliance,

such simplicity the self could fail

to see. In three months I’ll leave

this city. Today, a chill in the air,

you’re reading Beckett fifty blocks

away, I’m looking at the orphaned 

bodies of fish, undulant and gold fervor. 

Do you want to see aggression?

the boy asks, holding a purple beta fish

to the light while dropping handfuls

of minnows into the bowl. He says,

I know you’re a girl and all

but sometimes it’s good to see.

Outside, in the rain, we love

with our hands tied, 

while things tear away at us.

In The Kitchen

It’s right before you drive away:

our limbs still warm with sleep,

coffee sputtering out, the north

wind, your hips pressing me

hard against the table. I like it hard

because I need to remember this.

I want to say harder. How we must

look to the road that’s gone,

to the splayed morning of cold

butter and inveterate greed.

Light comes and goes in the field.

Oranges in a bowl, garlic, radio.

In the story of us, no one wins.

Isolation is a new theme

someone says. By now

I’ve invented you. Most people

don’t like to touch dead things.

That’s what my friend tells me

when I find my fish on the floor.

It must have wanted an out.

Sometimes my desire scares me.

Sometimes I watch football

and think: four chances

is enough to get there. But 

we don’t have helmets.

I want to say harder,

I can take it, but

there’s no proof I can.