Poetry
How I Write My Love Poems
by James Brown
Dry rain: all day I break rules.
First, the rule of law, then
the law of diminishing returns.
Finally, confounded by grammar,
I head for the hills.
Maybe there are no obligations now.
Veins inhabit the mind like supplejack.
There’s a point where your exertion enters
its own personal funnel, and sound mummifies,
the way a shell presses the sea to an ear.
Is it not truly something how you can hear
small points of light emerging from the brightness?
The law of combining volumes
is rewritten as we speak.
Chance fattens like an ambulance until,
breasting a widow’s peak, the heart upholds
its tall story. You’re on top of the world
– hair you can upbraid, personal
pronouns you take for your own.
And, further into the zone:
sudden delicious Braille, a ribcage’s
brimming xylophone, the unwritten
rules of engagement
making a home.
