Daniel Luévano

Love and Love's Semantic Twin

At the level of brain--say love
when you mean hidden between two, within one,
essentially, a greater living, a body beyond
any one body. Years before you gave birth,
hypotheses were all interior, all about "the other."
There was nothing and everything in our living room:
a tin of white sand, a tarot pack, a tie-dye incense-
burning frog and a white porous
rock from the beach of wherever.
There was winter morning fog

as we trickled into the wild awake,
a long shower holding us in
a talk about the Gospel of Thomas.
When man is not male, woman
not female, all suffering ends,
returned to original oneness.
Yet the mode we saw was fathers
panicky, innocent, alien.
Like any number of neighbors
we asked what we wanted of this.

In that room, the morning sun around us
said, Call me darkness and make yourself light.
The health magazine said, Let's run cross-country.
Let's be tough and athletic and gay.
There was the kiss of raw lips
smoothed by two cold peaceful tongues.
Clothes found their way
out of suitcases, into a garage sale and trips to Salvation Army--