If This Were Love
If I loved you
I would shake you, and the silent scream between us
Would hang like frozen blood
And if you loved me, your white fingers would dig back
Piercing my shoulders
Red with the scars of our surrender
And if we were to wake, in a gasp for air
And find that our embrace was made of bones
Then the faces of our fear would be our own
The empty sockets bearing no lies
For death is the ultimate promise
And if there were such a thing
As pale camomile in June
When owls paint the silent sky
With cats eye gold, against this empty moon
Then, and only then, we’d stop
And look together toward the mountain
Familiar in its sadness, and lonely jagged top
And the ugly sweat and sweet sweet tears
Would mingle in a single drop
And there would be no embrace more barren or reborn
No land worth leaving, no allegiance sworn
Just the breath, through lips long cracked
By waiting, waiting, waiting for waiting for the water, so deeply trapped
Our tattered olive branch, gripped by a dying dove
If this were love
(2013)
