One Poem

Peter Johnson

THE WORST LOVE POEM EVER WRITTEN

I come to you like a coyote with one leg, wound tighter than Paris Hilton's thong, while in the sky a hot air balloon hisses, The language of love is the language of love. And if I say, "Meet me at the golf simulator on deck 13," don't affect ignorance, though love is like that, and I, like a rubber-soled elephant trainer, weep to see the dinghy of your love disappear. Where? Behind that cloud, that wave. An argument would help, or a blind date with oneself. Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Will you stop, Dave? I'm afraid. That movie was great and always makes me think of you, which raises the question: "Who sunk the male boat?" Yes, I said that, in spite of the condom stuck to the floor like a deflated raft, in spite of our labial exercises, mostly arriving during sleep, like a posse of reporters awaiting a drive-by beheading. Bestir! my love-brain cools in the wine cellar of your tornadic frown. I'm talking about Valentine's Day when you gave me morning glories that overtook the house. You said you had a craving for glassware, for ebony canes, and flat screen TVs, while the frigid lovebirds sang all day in falsetto. In return, I gave you the square root of possibility and a verb which could save the world if I knew how to pronounce it—something like drowsy or dorsal, a word to replace the one called Love.
                 Love: an old man with a broken wrist, his white beard glimmering in the moonlight. Oh, yeah.

Peter Johnson

Peter Johnson's latest book of prose poems is Eduardo and "I" (White Pine Press, 2006) and his novel What Happened was published by Front Street Books in 2007.

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