Rosa Lunetta’s Guide to Love and Poetry

I want to be a poet who writes about the moon and flowers,
I want to write about how love makes me flutter – the
closest I came to romance was a brush of fate and an exchange with a paradise
not of this world – so ask me to write you a love song and I will tell you of
how her eyes remind me of a pond under an ocean and
How his lips blossom like blood oranges when he curses my name.

Don’t ask me to shed light under my bed and beat the monsters out
With disquiet words and an exuberant quill, I am not that kind of poet.
The crick in my fingers hurts more than my mother’s broken back
and the the strain in my eyes matters more than my country men grasping at
drought straws, because, as I said, I am not that kind of poet.

I've known you enough to know what kind of blood flows between us
That I can tell you when you ask too much of me, like when you
Ask me to paint you a romantic afterlife I know to build you a house
Of camouflaged memories and polished skeletons that come with a warrant –
a warning.
It is not my fault in the attic there is the dead girl with her eyes burned shut.

I want to be that lover who kisses away tears
and reminds you to always look at the sun twice,
Once to make sure it is still there
And a second time – to still feel its hot pity
On your face because sometimes
All you are allowed is a warm nudge –
To remember the sin that lingers with cold
tea cups forgotten in the sink.

Don’t ask me to cry over a grave or heartbreak,
I did not read Psyche’s fine print, just say I’m a flight risk
Because I will never remember what you had on
in Queens, and in Greece, and at the dawn of time,
Maybe a white shirt, definitely a smear of misplaced trust.
I could not bear the burden. I am not here to stay.
I could be that kind of lover, but maybe not today,
Maybe only when the sun shines, in another life
Another white shirt, but this time, maybe I will learn to like the pouring rain .

I have known you enough to know what kind of fabric is between us
That I can tell when you ask too much of me, like when you
Ask me to love you through life, I know to throw you a dazzling ball
and kiss you at midnight. Maybe I do it to wash away the aftertaste
of a bullet between my teeth. Maybe I do it because I know
to miss you in the morning.

I know of love like I know of trails of lipstick marred against marble statues
With no one to whisper, “mind the white collar.”
I know of poetry like I know of words engrained on the sleeves of polished skeletons forgotten in my backyard.