How does sweet love compete with ‘been there, done that?’
Even you, Rosalinda, know it cannot.
This morning I scan crowds coming off the train.
A stranger’s face might delight me. But yours?
‘Been there. Done that.’ It’s true! I know who you are.
But surely there is much we didn’t do?
I spent a relatively long time loving you.
The enemy of love is always the new.
New ideas which make love drift away
are (progress!) invented every day.
Even couples who stay are limited by death.
Hey, what’s new? What can we do?
Indifference and death are looking for you
even as they are making me bored.
You turned away from me, even as I implored.
This is what makes love alluring in the end:
that it cannot, that it should not, that we don’t want it to, but it wants to end.
I was thinking about this election and how so many are sad.
This, more than anything, perhaps, is an indication of human virtue.
It proves we care about society as a whole.
But what is society? Restaurants? Shirts with logos on dummies
in windows at the college? Plastic bottles?
The election, the election. Oh, Rosalinda, dear.
They say death is in our cards. Love?
Love’s a cliché. Been there, done that.
There’s a glass of your favorite soda here.