Is my love too much?
Does it embarrass you?
Blood, poems, babies,
red needs that telephone
from foreign countries,
black needs that spatter
the pages
of your white papery heart.

Would you rather
have a young girl
with simpler needs:
lunch, sex so undemanding,
loving,
dinner,
bed,
& needs that are never
red as gaping wounds
but cool & blue
as television screen
in tract houses.

Oh my love,
those young,
simpler girls
read my poems too.

They tell me they feel
the same as I do.
They tell me I transcribe
the language of their hearts.
They tell me I translate
their mute, unspoken pain
in the white light
of language.

Oh my love,
no love
is ever wholly undemanding.
It can pretend coolness
until the first baby comes,
howling her own infant need
into a universe
that never summoned her.

The love you seek
cannot be found
in young, less demanding
girls.

The love you seek
cannot be found
in the white pages
of recipe books.

The love you seek
can only be found
in this poet's heart,
and that my sweet
is a promise.

~SAS~