I've been thinking about love again
and a poem by Vievee Francis
The way she feels draped over my chest like a satin scarf. The way the sun shines through her sheer and shimmering fabric. The way the grass seems to dance a little more behind her.
In French, love is masculine in the singular. She becomes feminine with the plural. I would like to know her in her more plentiful state.
I met with love again today, five minutes from the grocery store where five friends gathered for the first time. Did she miss me while she was away? Or was I the one who had left her behind?
“I’ve been thinking about love again.”
I’m learning to recognize the little marks she leaves behind. The tracks in the snow and sparkling nuggets strewn into the winding streets. A message scribbled by a child in chalk on the sidewalk. A forehead kiss in the morning, warm like coffee. A friend that sees my smile. A friend that sees me. The hand that tucks in the corner of the blanket on crisp mornings. The scattering of leaves in the fall until only the last remains. I collect these nuggets in a red wagon rolled behind me, piled high.
“Those who live to have it and
those who live to give it.”
If my wagon is to be empty, I hope it is because I have gifted these nuggets away to new corners and strangers.
“Of course there are those for whom both are true,
but never in the same measure.”
I wonder which I am. I wonder which I want to be.