Love

The busboys are between
lunch and dinner
talking about women,
how Asian ones are all about money,
and Italian ones are all about sex.
If you have money, then you're set
with the Asians, and if you can fuck,
then you will never lose an Italian girl.

Sicilian men can fuck two or three
thousand women, but not their wives.
American girls like danger.
Be a bad daddy for Americans,
and give Latina women babies.
German girls want your mind alone.


I ask for more information.
They say,
Love is unearned.
Love duplicates
itself and breaks you,
and you are grateful.

You are in a room alone.
You are in a room with your lover,
naked, angry, lit.
You will fuck and fight,
forgetting to remember
the breath in winter,
the unexpected bumps,
and the, Oh, she's got my number.

What does love owe me?
No answers.
You will not deserve them.
Love is undeserved,
don't do, don't ask.

You will still be itching afterwards.
These wounds don't close,
they needs be cauterized.
This rash,

this bleeding will stop
at length, and you will mourn its absence.

You will not die of love,
and that will be the tragedy.
The tragedy will be it didn't kill you.
The tragedy of love is that you live.