Firing Fire

Love declaring
sings garish, embarrassing songs
that rifle the night like murderous revolutions.

Imagined, assumed, fleeting--
Love's gravity is illusions.

I cannot possess
or rid myself of it.

It sticks like coins to skin,
and lets out sounds like a thousand
mosquitoes on a rainy afternoon,
cutting through nets with dead fish teeth.

Too much has been said about love,
both painful and insufficient.
I myself could pierce the nets or net
the air with breath that I've not spent.

Marged Howley



See more poetry from Marged
Howley in the print edition.