Let me take a break from this,
close my eyes,
and wander in the dark.
I sneak into the bedroom,
kiss her once on the forehead, softly,
twice on her bare shoulder so she will know.
When I wake,
the sun has kept its promise.
This is why I love.
Always a bridge over the river.
Always an apple pink afterglow reflects on tall glass.
Always a stream of brightness greens the dark Chicago River.
| Copyright © 2019 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s latest volume of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else, was published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018. |
Ha, talk about an arbiter! For this poem of yours, Michael, I need a docent, a guide. A break from “this”? On her bare shoulder “so she will know”? The sun’s keeping its promise is “why I love”?
ReplyDeleteI feel kind of confident, though, that the bridge, the reflective pink afterglow, and the stream of brightness are metaphoric riches enjoyed through the poet’s spiritual and, I have no reason not to think, erotic love for “her.”
Ah, two poems of love in a single serving! An embarrassment of poetic riches. How different from Eric's scenario, this, a love deeply requited. And the familiar scenes of daybreak, the assurance of continuity, like metaphors for the enduring nature of this love.
ReplyDeleteYour reference to “two poems of love” is almost too admissive, so very, very different are Eric’s and Michael’s poems. I’m not even sure, myself, that “Halo” is a love poem at all. Michael’s surely is, even if, for me, it is more obscure on several points than Eric’s is.
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