it keeps all year

When the bare-breasted bikers go home,

and the billboards give way to margaritas

and monochrome,

our love settles back

into its softest animal self.

*

My love is a gentle kitchen hip-check;

yours, a pair of open hands.

My love is a maple tree;

a sugar runs through me

so thin it acts like blood.

You are fire and time.

Your love is the patience.

My love is clouds

of everything that flees the best of me.

Your love

sees the syrup in the sap.

My love

shows up most in winter’s dying days,

but oh, how it keeps.

It keeps all year.