I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of a vulture. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the ***** whale, and the ***** whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I never want to be away from you again, except at work, in the restroom or when one of us is at a movie the other does not want to see.

I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where we once were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively. I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from slim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and no matter how I am discovered after what happens to me as I am discovering this.

I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world.

I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence, and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong.

I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday.

Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.

Life will never end when you are in it.”

When you fixate on the petal of a flower,
Time moves off beat in waves of an hour,
Time bent,
And money spent.

All to impress someone who impresses you without trying.
You send me flying.
A scepticism
Proves all old mysticism.
You wear on top dark,
And your bottom light, like a shark.

I'm the wader in the dangerous tide,
And if I said you weren't worth it I lied.

You remind me of the sweet smell of baking cookies.
Remember getting treated like one of the rookies?

Ever since we met my knees grow weak,
I'm afraid my feelings have sprung a leak.

Something harder?
There is nothing, I'd barter.
For the affection I hold,
Must be met by you also, I am told.
So I must earn it, take the time to bond and learn,
Only then can the chemistry between us burn.

I don't feel desperate toward you,
Not at ease, the butterflies in my stomach still make me feel blue.
But it's OK, because in your eyes something has me go red,
While most of it is in my heart, not head,
I still feel a great interest here,
There is something special I don't yet know, dear.

Many adore you,  as would more with the chance,
But rather than having them all the opportunity with you to dance,
I shall offer myself first,
Hoping that in matters of this love I am not cursed.

The path to paradise is not well worn.
I think I see it, but it's never clear,
Just scratches on a rock or silver streams,
Not deep enough to navigate, so I,
The awkward wader, stir up silt and sing
Off key, a howling animal, unclean.

coughing up sand
thrown by the tide
on the shore we land

just a couple of mollusks
ribbed and tanned
shining in the sun
wearing a coat of raised bands

half broken off
insides feasted on
the wader, sandpiper
and the roving prawn

we don't fit together
as we're not one in the same
but we both washed up
from where it is we came