Pseudolove

Pseudolove lurked my peripheryin dotted streets

of

discarded condoms beer cans bums string-y hair.

do I dare?

He creeped upon my windowpanes,

overlooking shoulders into my palm, into my life.

A fixture. My pillow. Inconspicuous shelves

with romantic pictures. The ‘Welcome’ mat that

received your shoes. The plate that served you

salmon filet. I made you salmon filet. Blue velveteen

fabric affixed my face and yours facing me.

The writings on the wall will not utter a peep.

Pseudolove letters were wiped away. Painted

white when your rouge colors disappeared.

Our first kisses dodged flurries in crisp black

night. Icicle tongues introduced. Dunked in

warm buckets of infatuation. Nearly spared by

Cupid’s arrow. Your pseudoliquidlove dribbled

from the tip.

Injectible trajectory silenced by time’s sweep.

Obelisk shadows fade to pitch dark.

Silence muted by nightingales, raspy kaydids,

the forgotten covert cicada impostures.

Fraudulent.

Drifte d a a

w y

like it so often does.

like the pseudohearts inked on the only

Valentine’s Day card you ever gave to me.

Transatlantic tears suppressed behind

eyelids facing away from you.

I sleep in dreams of yesterday. Children

I will never meet. A future my feet will

never walk. A tree-lined sidewalk beyond

the white picket fence we’ll never paint, and

the auburn mums we’ll never plant in potters

so symmetrically chaperoning our front door.

My psedolove lost was not lost at all. It revealed

the beauty and the horrors that lie within my soul;

My pseudolove hung like linen curtains in open

country windows peering into glens and

spring gardens. Hung like fresh-picked cotton wisps

coat the sky.

My pseudosweetheart. My pseudoboo. My pseudo-

spiritinmyheart.

Extinguished flame.

I am Loveborn. Lovebound.

Bound to be found.

lovefound.