What's Love Like?

What’s Love Like?
 
Ferocious never ending winter storms.
The ocean all souped up, ready to roll
could suck you down its frothy mouth—
Your sudden movements, its slick, uncertain edge.
 
Maybe it’s found in the wisdom of quince?
First flowers snowflake white
(so we remember what it’s like, winter hardships and trouble).
Then the fruit.
First bitter, we boil, to its essence.
 
It’s certainly like that.
Like trouble.
 
A hostile teenage nephew
who comes to visit for a week
stays all summer.
Won’t look you in the face
so ignited by his terror.
 
Nightmares of forgotten faces—
Brother, father, sister, lover.
Not love.
 
Not love: what slings and stings and sings and burns,
corrosive as the rusted metal,
the pipe he used to beat you with.
Rusty the nails—the coffin sealed with love.
 
You said, don’t say it.
As if the words, I love you,
were a spell I could put you under.
 
I held you under
Like drowning
Like the earth
Too saturated
The rains
So much
All the trees fall
Once dignified, wise
Now useless, obsolete.
 
Magdalena Montagne