In Lieu of a Grand Theory
This love poem begins with a Google search
for desire then love, and an urge then resistance
to begin with a definition the way a high school
valedictorian adjusts the microphone, clears
her throat and, with her lips against the stubble
of the windscreen, begins, According to the 11th
Edition of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.
And I think, valedictorian? Really? I want something
scientific, peer-reviewed, about which I would only
be able to read the abstract without a subscription,
something with Latinate words and fresh-minted phrases
introduced into the lexicon last week in an obscure paper
read by exactly thirteen people. Have you forgotten
this is a love poem? Why can’t I begin last night
when we curled into the couch to watch the movie
Netflix recommended about the boxer turned
priest? You cried through the entire thing.
I don’t know if it was the Catholicism, or the brother
lost in childhood, the idea of never having sex again,
or a side effect of the booster vaccinations that sent us
to the couch with a bowl of popcorn in the first place.
But, you’re crying and there’s some chemical reaction
happening in me that would make me swim upstream
to my own death or fly 2,500 miles on filament wings.
I have a fleeting urge to drop to my knees, bury my face
in the warmth of your lap and say, Is this thing on?
for desire then love, and an urge then resistance
to begin with a definition the way a high school
valedictorian adjusts the microphone, clears
her throat and, with her lips against the stubble
of the windscreen, begins, According to the 11th
Edition of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.
And I think, valedictorian? Really? I want something
scientific, peer-reviewed, about which I would only
be able to read the abstract without a subscription,
something with Latinate words and fresh-minted phrases
introduced into the lexicon last week in an obscure paper
read by exactly thirteen people. Have you forgotten
this is a love poem? Why can’t I begin last night
when we curled into the couch to watch the movie
Netflix recommended about the boxer turned
priest? You cried through the entire thing.
I don’t know if it was the Catholicism, or the brother
lost in childhood, the idea of never having sex again,
or a side effect of the booster vaccinations that sent us
to the couch with a bowl of popcorn in the first place.
But, you’re crying and there’s some chemical reaction
happening in me that would make me swim upstream
to my own death or fly 2,500 miles on filament wings.
I have a fleeting urge to drop to my knees, bury my face
in the warmth of your lap and say, Is this thing on?
May / June 2023
Sarah Elkins lives in southern West Virginia. Her work is forthcoming from or has recently appeared in Cimarron Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Quarterly West, Hiram Poetry Review, SWWIM, Porter House Review, and elsewhere.
Art: Jennifer Peart. Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks, acrylic on canvas panel, 14”x11”