By Julie R. Enzer
is small and compact and made from limestone.
It sits on a rough wood platform—like a railroad tie—
that makes me think of the road of iron
and the dirty hermit screaming
Love should be put into action.
The easy embrace of these two lovers
the way their arms fit perfectly
around the other
the same height
their lips and eyes meet exactly
the way their hair falls similarly down their face
isn’t that what we all want in a lover?
The perfect match.
The perfect moment.
This is what I despise about poems—
they way they isolate
distill life to only the good parts
they never capture this—
harsh words in morning or constipation or warts.
We save these for television commercials
though now even those seem optional
as though if we wish
we could look away from our need
for hemorrhoidal creams, shady lawyers,
and breakfast cereals fortified with fiber—
this is the way of the modern world:
take away, take away, take away.
Until we realize too much has been removed
and now must be replaced, frantically, inadequately
like on the train this morning when I remembered
not what I had forgotten
but what I had missed—
earlier, in anger, our goodbye kiss.
Julie R. Enszer has her MFA from the University of Maryland and is enrolled currently in the PhD in Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland. Her poetry has previously been published in Iris: A Journal About Women, Room of One’s Own, Long Shot, Feminist Studies, and the Jewish Women’s Literary Annual. She is a regular book reviewer for the Lambda Book Report and Calyx. You can read more of her work at www.JulieREnszer.com.