"You" By Julia Alvarez

You

By: Julia Alvarez

I love how English has a single you,

no tu, usted, no trying to figure out 

where strangers ran in the hierarchy

of my respect: are you a formal 

or familiar you? No asking permission

or apologizing if I get it wrong. 

I love the true democracy of you.

The pampered son of the dot-com millionaire

or the coal miner's daughter - all are you,

united in one no-nonsense pronoun. 

Comforting when I write because it means 

I'm leaving no one out, even a line

intended for an intimate includes

you, and also you. In this, my Noah's ark,

everyone is invited and can board

in two or threes or singly - those unborn 

as well as ghostly antepasados

who use to be usted and now are dust. 

At sea in mystery, we all became 

human cargo down the generations. 

Once you get used to you, all faces seem

to hold the face you love, and each child could be

the one you never had, each girl the girl 

you use to be or who your mother was. 

You is inclusive like that Beetle ad where linebackers kept piling into a car - 

I forget what the point was, but I'd watch

and understand their yearning to be one.

Just as I once climbed into a second tongue

and made room for me in its pronoun.

This is My Heart By: Joy Harjo

This is My Heart

 By: Joy Harjo 

This is my heart. It is a good heart.
Bones and a membrane of mist and fire
are the woven cover.
When we make love in the flower world
my heart is close enough to sing
to yours in a language that has no use
for clumsy human words.

 

My head is a good head, but it is a hard head
and it whirs inside with a swarm of worries.
What is the source of this singing, it asks
and if there is a source why can't I see it
right here, right now
as real as these hands hammering
the world together
with nails and sinew?

 

This is my soul. It is a good soul.
It tells me, "come here forgetful one."
And we sit together with a lilt of small winds
who rattle the scrub oak.
We cook a little something
to eat: a rabbit, some sofkey
then a sip of something sweet
for memory.

 

This is my song. It is a good song.
It walked forever the border of fire and water
climbed ribs of desire to my lips to sing to you.
Its new wings quiver with
vulnerability.

 

Come lie next to me, says my heart.
Put your head here.
It is a good thing, says my soul.

 

Love Poem By Louise Gluck

Love Poem

  by Louise Gluck

There is always something to be made of pain.

Your mother knits.

She turns out scarves in every shade of red.

They were for Christmas, and they kept you warm

while she married over and over, taking you

along. How could it work,

when all those years she stored her widowed heart

as though the dead come back.

No wonder you are the way you are,

afraid of blood, your women

like one brick wall after another.

Being Human (Freewrite)

I prefer paper –

it burns with ease,

floating away with the wind.

But electronically ...

you can trace me

replace me,

and never have to face me.

You've forgotten ... 

What it feels like to be human.

I prefer your voice -

 a sound I can identify

The way that blue reminds you of the sky.

As we walk hand and hand,

and the earth between barefoot toes in the sand

Arms wrapped beneath mine-

we peered over the balcony

watching the sun set on the distant horizon.

But those memories, have faded...

Your perception of love is simply - jaded.

Because Love Battles By Pable Neruda

"Because Love Battles"

By: Pablo Neruda

And because love battles...

not only in its burning agricultures

but also in the mouth of men and women,

I will finish off by taking the path away

to those who between my chest and your fragrance

want to interpose their obscure plant.

About me, nothing worse

they will tell you, my love,

than what I told you.

I lived in the prairies

before I got to know you

and I did not wait love but I was

laying in wait for and I jumped on the rose.

What more can they tell you?

I am neither good nor bad but a man,

and they will then associate the danger

of my life, which you know

and which with your passion you shared.

And good, this danger

is danger of love, of complete love

for all life,

for all lives,

and if this love brings us

the death and the prisons,

I am sure that your big eyes,

as when I kiss them,

will then close with pride,

into double pride, love,

with your pride and my pride.

But to my ears they will come before

to wear down the tour

of the sweet and hard love which binds us,

and they will say: “The one

you love,

is not a woman for you,

Why do you love her? I think

you could find one more beautiful,

more serious, more deep,

more other, you understand me, look how she’s light,

and what a head she has,

and look at how she dresses,

and etcetera and etcetera”.

And I in these lines say:

Like this I want you, love,

love, Like this I love you,

as you dress

and how your hair lifts up

and how your mouth smiles,

light as the water

of the spring upon the pure stones,

Like this I love you, beloved.

To bread I do not ask to teach me

but only not to lack during every day of life.

I don’t know anything about light, from where

it comes nor where it goes,

I only want the light to light up,

I do not ask to the night

explanations,

I wait for it and it envelops me,

And so you, bread and light

And shadow are.

You came to my life

with what you were bringing,

made

of light and bread and shadow I expected you,

and Like this I need you,

Like this I love you,

and to those who want to hear tomorrow

that which I will not tell them, let them read it here,

and let them back off today because it is early

for these arguments.

Tomorrow we will only give them

a leaf of the tree of our love, a leaf

which will fall on the earth

like if it had been made by our lips

like a kiss which falls

from our invincible heights

to show the fire and the tenderness

of a true love.

After a While By Veronica A. Shoffstall

After a While

After a while you learn

The subtle difference between

Holding a hand and chaining a soul

And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning

And company doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn

That kisses aren't contracts

And presents aren't promises

And you begin to accept your defeats

With your head up and your eyes ahead

With the grace of a woman

Not the grief of a child

And you learn

To build all your roads on today

Because tomorrow's ground is

Too uncertain for plans

And futures have a way

Of falling down in mid flight

After a while you learn

That even sunshine burns if you get too much

So you plant your own garden

And decorate your own soul

Instead of waiting

For someone to bring you flowers

And you learn

That you really can endure

That you are really strong

And you really do have worth

And you learn and you learn

With every good bye you learn.

~Veronica A. Shoffstall