Riam Griswold
Love Poem
Let me begin by giving you the moon,
as is traditional.
Over our heads is hanged its round and pockmarked face.
Yes, hanged. It was unrepentant,
recidivist. So am I,
but I don’t flaunt it quite as brightly.
I’ve been trying to decide
what kind of creature I could be
with you.
My ancestors would need a great deal of explanation.
I’ve caught them crouched before my nightstand,
handling my medication, a rainbow rattling
between their metacarpals. Enough, I said.
Go bury yourselves in the basement.
For twenty years I have not had a basement.
You wanted a bouquet of broken glass,
so I walked for hours by the highway,
plucking jagged blossoms from the ground.
Bottles kissed and then discarded,
scattering their seeds. Red
is the rarest color.
I showed you what I’d made from what I found
and you said, I hate how hard it’s trying
to be beautiful.
You wanted dinner, so I caught a fish,
who told me of the sky. A roaring beast
once flung her to the lake
in a glittering cascade of shattered light-
breathless moments cradled by the sun.
I said, They brought you here to die.
She said, What does it matter?
Given the choice, I’d take that plunge again.
All this before the moon in the last hours of its freedom.
You asked me what I wanted.
I said, More than what I’ll have.
Someday the sun will eat us whole,
and I will keep my eyes wide open for the blaze.
A kind of love lives in a fire’s hunger.
Look: I end by giving you the flames.
as is traditional.
Over our heads is hanged its round and pockmarked face.
Yes, hanged. It was unrepentant,
recidivist. So am I,
but I don’t flaunt it quite as brightly.
I’ve been trying to decide
what kind of creature I could be
with you.
My ancestors would need a great deal of explanation.
I’ve caught them crouched before my nightstand,
handling my medication, a rainbow rattling
between their metacarpals. Enough, I said.
Go bury yourselves in the basement.
For twenty years I have not had a basement.
You wanted a bouquet of broken glass,
so I walked for hours by the highway,
plucking jagged blossoms from the ground.
Bottles kissed and then discarded,
scattering their seeds. Red
is the rarest color.
I showed you what I’d made from what I found
and you said, I hate how hard it’s trying
to be beautiful.
You wanted dinner, so I caught a fish,
who told me of the sky. A roaring beast
once flung her to the lake
in a glittering cascade of shattered light-
breathless moments cradled by the sun.
I said, They brought you here to die.
She said, What does it matter?
Given the choice, I’d take that plunge again.
All this before the moon in the last hours of its freedom.
You asked me what I wanted.
I said, More than what I’ll have.
Someday the sun will eat us whole,
and I will keep my eyes wide open for the blaze.
A kind of love lives in a fire’s hunger.
Look: I end by giving you the flames.
--
Riam Griswold is an editor and writer of fiction and poetry. Their writing has been published in journals and anthologies including Soundings East, Audience Askew, Querencia Press’s quarterly anthology, F3ll Magazine, Coffin Bell Journal, Levee Magazine, Red Rock Review, Write Launch, and Book XI.
Riam Griswold is an editor and writer of fiction and poetry. Their writing has been published in journals and anthologies including Soundings East, Audience Askew, Querencia Press’s quarterly anthology, F3ll Magazine, Coffin Bell Journal, Levee Magazine, Red Rock Review, Write Launch, and Book XI.