Poem 309

I don’t (or didn’t) seem to use repetition much in my poetry, so it’s nice to see it it working well here, making its point through three separate and different takes on the heart-as-shower-head image that build on each other … 

… who or what the poem was in reply to I don’t remember, but probably some assertion that first love or early love is the greatest and most vital in your life, or (the opposite) that we forget and heal prior loves and missteps leaving scars but no live emotion … 

… the definition of growing old that most appeals to me is that all your experience of love leads to you falling in love with the world, from one directed stream it becomes a shower …

In Reply

No
it's not like that

      we stick our love
here and there
                                wear it on white name tags
safety-pinned to the heart
two new holes for each lover's
entry and exit
                             until
                                      a warm shower head
your heart plays at the squeeze of a bulb
gently


until your pierced heart is a warm shower head
a soft fountain of love
       pressure dissipated


until the heart which emptied itself
when lanced
                           in a single thrilling stream
drops pressure and like a warm shower head
plays its soft fountain
of love

leaks love at every seam