A Love Reckless by Cate Lycurgus
There may be virtue in restraint—: in distance, drinking,
or—like the child left to cry—in letting your savings
be. How, if you hold still enough to sense the veins’
valves click shut up & down both arms, the colt might
cool off. His pace slows to staccato steps, to deep heaves
beside the fence. Advocate for control—
but try telling this to daddy’s girl as she fords the border
piggy-back; maintain the merit of reserves despite a shattered
piggy-bank, an overdraft for diapers. SNAP. One might
at another frisk, another cellmate yet to return;
& if the brush were not on fire, I’d rather have two birds
in it. Today needs a little hum on hand, so I lift
my alto. Closed fist. Raise all my sugar crimson
to hang on the closest eave. Restraint is faith
in abundance—just another way to say tomorrow, more
where that came from. But iron filings leap & thistle—
who doesn’t magnet to earth? I love you so much, I run
through the house licking the rim of every cup your lips might have
touched. I’m calling & hanging up, calling again—mouth
open, lip snagged like a largemouth bass. Have no angle
in this gape or way to temper my flail when—we’re drawn down
every day. You are the uproar at the end of my cherry slushie
& this is practically holy. I am not afraid.
Cate Lycurgus’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Best American Poetry 2020, American Poetry Review, Tin House, New England Review, Best New Poets 2019, and elsewhere. She has also received scholarships from Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences and was named one of Narrative’s 30 Under 30 Featured Writers. Cate lives south of San Francisco, California, where she interviews for 32 Poems and teaches writing. You can find her at www.catelycurgus.com.
28 December 2021
Leave a Reply