Let us no longer speak of love.
Love is horseplay at its best
and good, I think, for just this life.
Let’s speak of something of ourselves
or of the way that we relate
that will endure beyond the grave—
but what? Your smart-ass comments,
no. Your anecdotes and hand gestures,
no and no. They’ll be the first to go.
And my rejoinders, punk-ass rhymes,
will soon be swallowed whole by time,
as will my money, my car, my keys.
Even our truest moments in speech
or touch, or listening to each other breathe
after making love and brushing teeth
and cuddling in blankets, spooning
habitually in our comfortable
nightly grave and rising like Jesus
to do it all again: All gone, and yet
without regret. When nothing’s left,
what’s there to mourn? Nothing itself?
Nothing will endure beyond the grave
(more wit), and nothing’s what
we’ll miss the most, I think (a trifle).
So actually let’s do speak of love
and horseplay, careless punches
to each other’s noses, awkward kisses,
dancing in our underwear near the edge
of the dumb void like the former
junior ringmasters that we are.
Let’s trounce the forbidden places
knowing that there’s less to life
than we had thought at first.
-Aaron Belz
