Not Distributed in Topics
You are not going to find love
You might get a hint of it
Out there
In the simpering folds of panic’s desperate worry
An inveigling taste perhaps
While the heart waits and waits for it’ll never properly
Want
And the heel’s played again without any
Arclight
Or even an abiding angel to its name
Pass the peas and the skeletons
Get swept up and then over
But you
You are not going to find love
Not out there
With your hurried mind and your misshapen soul
Your perpetually packed bags and your lost hindsight
Not in the top shelf of a well-lit bar
Or the warped plaster and mold of a dingy dive
You
You are not going to find love
Not in delirious conversations about Barthelme in the back of two-in-the-morning cabs
Not in all the happy-hours or parties you’ve ever been bored at
Not in the flick of methamphetamine’s furious fire
Not in a poolroom’s popcorn machine or an alley’s noir-like glint or an airport security checkpoint or a crowded elevator ride
Not even inside what you consider to be your deepest and most romantic thoughts
Love
Love is for the birds and the newscasters and the dogs and the pamphleteers
Love is for Randy Newman and Elvis and The Munchkins and the underpaid groundskeepers and those who sneak on the bus for free
Love is not for you
To find
It is just something that happens
Like a spot of vomit on the sleeve
Or a trapeze artist sipping Beefeater on a trampoline
Before wishing goodbye to all the black dresses of her past
Silent and barefoot and brave
Some squashed eyeball of a thing no longer wandering
Love
Out of it for good
Love
Missed beneath the seashells or a dumpster dripping rain
Love
You’ll never have enough and always too much
Love
With no cash value or interest earned at all
Love
Love
I’m quite sure
It must happen
All of the goddamn time
