What is the consequence of loving you?
Will you make me rich? Drape me in leisure.
Satiate my hunger with rare cuts of bovine flanks?
Whom will I lose and whom will I gain?
Will it bother me if my sister finds you odd,
Or if my mother derides you for your mere gender?
Shall I drink more or less? Will sobriety find me solitary,
Or inebriation companioned? Will you tip and pour or light and pull?
Will my body stretch, an intimate vanity lost to your unusual size?
Or will I cool and tighten, regard my partner, you,
In terms more amiable than flammable?
Will I lose my sad, my lonely?
What about my resolve or my mind?
If you lose yours (mind), shall I learn to practice grace
Or defend my position with indifference?
Will we have dogs, children? A summer house or upside down mortgage?
Perhaps there will be poetry. Certainly. Yes.
Yours. Mine. Theirs. (Those before us.)
Will I drop historical references into small talk,
Or acquire a taste for small talk at all?
Will I become a goddess? A martyr? A pariah?
Will you suck my money and energy, leave me flattened as emptied breast?
Or will you pump me full of pretty adorations and breathy promises,
Things that whistle as they pass through punctured heart.
Maybe not. Maybe solid content, firm assurance, affection cast in platinum.
What, pray tell, is the consequence of loving you?
First published in October, 2017.
