Reading Someone Else's Love Poems

is, after all, all we've ever done

for centuries—except write them—but what

a strange thing it is, after all, rose-cheeks and sun-

hair and lips, and underarms, and that little gut

I love to nuzzle on, soft under-belly—oops—

that wasn't what I meant to talk about;

ever since handkerchiefs fell, and hoop-

skirts around ankles swirled

and smiled, lovers have dreamed their loves upon

the pages, courted and schemed and twirled

and styled, hoping that once they'd unfurled their down-

deep longing, they would have their prize—

not the songs of love, but love beneath disguise.

Kate Light

From The Laws of Falling Bodies, Story Line Press, © 1997,
co-winner of the 1997 Nicholas Roerich Prize.  Reprinted by
permission of the author.