Salarium

You have paid
me in salt for love

From the sea I take
More to preserve my

Heart, my heart cured by love –
Like brine softening olives —takes
That which is incapable
Of being obtained and
Changes it.

The salt in my sweat
Now on my tounge
Reminds me —She
Loved me once

The salt

Stealing
The water from
My eyes.

Burns.

Copyright c.a. leibow 2006

Love has its own agenda.
After Arthur Sze

An old man carrying flowers across the street
Is hushed forever.

A cracked window is shut, letting
A red throated sparrow back into the sky.

I see man turn a corner running from a woman
— Unable to recognize his lover any more.

See a man sitting in a park wrapping
Barbed wire around his chest.

Dark bouquets hanging from the trees.

I see a photograph of a smiling couple –
It has been torn and taped together time
And time again.

I meet a woman, who was abandoned by
Her father but found another — wondering
If he’ll ever come home.

I know a man who studied anatomy
To find a way to replace his heart —
Inventing a pump without heat.

A philosopher argues that the fundamental
Difference between Night
And Day is the shade of fate.
Lovers struggling against
The cold hearts current.
Oblivious

copyright c.a. leibow 2006