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