As a Verb

if love is as love does, then it’s the way that you waver and waffle around while the world turns, never waits, as i’m waiting my turn in line to see the signs;

it’s a zero-sum game with no rules and no name, no stakes and no breaks and no shame;

it’s the way your lip quivers under scrutiny and under covers, like a trembling leaf undercover, leaves you fumbling to recover;

it’s the way your eyes shine, all mine, all light and bright and wet, and I ask how do you get them that way? and you can’t say, you can only ask me to stay, and that’s okay;

it’s the way that a river floods its banks, all giving of its excess with no thanks, a cup runneth over and over and over as you watch but never learn;

it’s the way we yearn for things that burn our skin, our hearts, the way our sins are a form of art to warm our souls in the fire, the soles of our feet jumping higher than the coals and the heat of desire;

it’s the way we long to haunt and loathe being haunted, only want to be wanted and touched, always asking too much;

it’s the way you are such a careless being, looking without seeing, running without fleeing, loosing without freeing;

come to think of it, it’s the way we’re always in the thick of it, the way we step up to the brink of it and watch the float and sink of it and disconnect the link of it and cut down to the pink of it, and that’s the point of it;

it’s rare and raw and tender, ever-resplendent splendor, both the borrower and lender crying out and holding fast, trying hard to make it last, a nighttime long past sleep, this thing we’d like to keep.