My Greatest Fear Is Love

This poem is a companion to the blog entry right below this titled "State of Fear." I suggest that you read it first in order to receive the full resonance of the poem.


My Greatest Fear is Love

Nicole jumped ship two days ago,
baring her breasts from the top deck of the ferry
while we bobbed in her wake, hoping the police
would be too busy birdwatching to notice
her nipples, whipped stiff by the wind which
carried a shearwater right into view of their binoculars,
both eyes trained on the flight of a fugitive
searching for a steep precipice on which to cling.
They could have had her arrested for indecent exposure,
but just at the very moment her nipples hove in to sight,
a scourge of cockroaches caught their eyes,
scuttling out of the hold as the bilge
pumped the lower deck clean.
The lower deck has been scrubbed and hosed so many times
it forgets what it feels to be dirty,
and no longer appreciates
what it means to live clean.
I’m afraid I’ll drink a beer tonight because today
I ate corned beef on rye.
I’m a vegetarian, in case you’re wondering,
which doesn’t mean I don't still crave red meat--not raw,
but rare, which means sometimes
slightly bleeding.
What is it about the daily grind that makes me
gnash my teeth and bury my head
under a pillow of plucked geese?
I hope some of them lived to fly out of the factory,
otherwise my dreams are destined to flop at my feet.
My feet are tough as hooves from
scampering over rocks on the beach.
I wish I would dream of galloping hooves on a purple highway.
I could follow them west on any given day,
but that would be giving into my compulsion to escape,
when instinct tells me the only way to expand my reach
is to stand in place, waving as the last ferry leaves,
ocasionally rewarded with the sight of a shearwater,
or two pink nipples whipped by the cold wind
for their boldness at exposing themselves in a public place.
When I first fell in love, I learned that pleasure
means nothing without pain.
Over the years, I’ve pushed my lovers away,
even though it looked like they left me.
My heart is like the pieces of broken china
I’ve collected on the beach.
I’ve always thought it best not to ask for anything,
but the pain on the left side of my neck exhorts me, receive.
If I walk every day, I might find enough fragments
to reassemble an entire plate on which to serve
the remains of the skate I stole from the gulls,
because I wanted to see them as hungry as me.
Nicole threw rocks at me so my mortar would break.
I would have offered her my roots, but the tide swept them away.
All matter of things shall be well, Julian of Norwich proclaimed.
She was an anchoress, which means she chose to stay in place and pray.
They put food and water in the window of her cell
attached to the village church,
so she wouldn’t have to leave.
Some people called her crazy, some people called her a saint.
A cell is where bees make honey,
as well as a place where body and spirit are chained.