More love poems for Valentine's Day

Vow

We will love like dogwood.

Kiss like cranes.

Die like moths.

I promise.

For Six Months with You

For six months with you, I would

Quit my lover

Leave the city

Sell my books.

For six months with you, I would

Live in Kansas

Join a carpool

Shave my legs.

For six months with you, I would

Be an actress

Wait on tables

Burn this poem.

But what if it doesn’t work out?

If it doesn’t work out I’ll join a convent

If it doesn’t work out I’ll cut my hair

If it doesn’t work out I’ll leave the country

If it doesn’t work out I still don’t care.

For six months with you, I would

Break the true law

Break my poor heart

Break my vow.

Now ask me what I’d do

For a year or two.

 

Williamsburg Poem

 

shaking like the El beneath the Williamsburg train

I wait for him to come

bridge and tunnel meeting like the girders of the El

his hard arms open my thighs

in the hood they have names for him

the girls say his names:

they call him dos cafes con leche

they say ruega para nosotros

they say he’s yucca, white and shining

like the crucifix on your breast

they say he’s lucky like a spider

they say he’s yucca, white and hard

they watch him

run like a wolf on the rooftops

run like a wolf on the rooftops

every night

rumbling like the train beneath the sidewalk

and the El above my head

encircled by these girders and his arms he

whispers spray paint and graffiti

pulls me down into the subway

pulls me down and up again

lifts me to the bridge the girders tattooed light the open El

his mouth burns the asphalt

graffiti burns my thighs

and I run through the clotheslines that flap on the roofs

I run through the night after him.

the girls give me garlic

the girls all pray for me

and I pray with the words from the spray-painted walls

and the girders that shake on the El

and I pray:

he is my catholic con leche

he is my old native religion

I pray: ruega para nosotros

I pray: ruega para mi.

he is my brujo lobo blanco

he is my amor y arana

and my prayers are as dark and as deep as his night

as the hole he will fill with his eyes

here in me

laughing

he opens

my Williamsburg thighs.