Love Poems

You burned the toast and called it rustic. The smoke alarm sang

I woke before you and did nothing about it. The radiator ticked. Your shoulder rose and fell.

Do not call the life small because the days were few. A match burns briefly

One more minute, I said, and the minute built a room. It hung our coats,

You didn't say the right thing. You didn't say anything. You just showed up with food and sat in my mess like it was your living room.

I know your name but not the one on your driver's license.

There's a word for the way your coffee cup still sits on the second shelf where no one else would put it—

The weekend goodbye was dramatic enough: platform, coffee going cold,

Being in love is the thing that comes after the fireworks—the quiet drive home with the windows down and someone's hand on your knee.

No sunset is involved. No stars arrange themselves. You are reading the electricity bill

I loved her the way Poe loved— not with sense but with fever.

I don't pray the way I was taught—on my knees, hands folded, words memorized like a password to heaven.