The Square Root of Love

The Square Root of Love

If I'm told

you're on the other side

of a bridge,

strange as it may seem,

please tell me,

what is the bridge that separates

your life from mine.

In what black hour, what rainy city,

what world without light, is that bridge

and I will cross it.

No matter the goal or the course,

or the sun, which was light and whip

of that day's journey.

No matter the sweat, the thirst,

the clumsy tired steps.

The round trip.

Even the landscape is not important,

nor the orange earth, the green of alpines,

the turquoise sea, the gray stones

of borders and millennial defenses.

When I go to love

I have poppies on my lips

and a spark of fire in my gaze.

I wire and garner red roses.

Red, the mirror of my darkened bedroom.

When I return from love, withered,

rejected, guilty, or simply absurd,

I arrive pale, and very cold.

Pupils rolled over the top of my eyes,

white blood cells in the clouds,

a skeleton and its defeat.

But I keep coming back.