Love is a Sidewinder

I admit that I’m afraid of the way the city here
is cordoned off in unpredictable manners & means,
and of those who speak of love as if it could separate,
bead off the skin like loosed mercury: if it seeps beneath,
there is damage; if we continue along, shining,
there is damage—but who among us ever really wanted
to remain unwanted? It’s been years since I sat,
chest deep, in a blue plastic pool, understood
the complexities of forever; in absence of vision,
we cling to hope: foolish heart, come down from the mountain,
all of the answers are eventually lies—try to remember this picture,
try to remember how that it is we gave instinct for reason;
forgive me, for I have sinned: I understand now
that words are holy, that we are given our bodies to know the world,
however flawed.

Terry L. Kennedy
“Love is a Sidewinder” is from Until the Clouds Shatter the Light that Plates our Lives (Jeanne Duval Editions, 2011).