July 28: Love Poems, Carl Phillips, "Domestic"

I love love poems.  Reread that sentence.  There are no typographical errors in it.  I'm a sucker for a good poem about love and passion.

I'm not going to belabor my point, defend the need for more love poems in the world.  I don't think anyone is going to argue with me.  Not that there's anything wrong with poems about death or sickness or grief or pain.  Some of my very favorite poems deal with all of those subjects.

Tonight, however, at the start of his vacation, Saint Marty is more interested in love and happiness.

Domestic

by:  Carl Phillips

If, when studying road atlases

while taking, as you call it, your   

morning dump, you shout down to   

me names like Miami City, Franconia,   

Cancún, as places for you to take   

me to from here, can I help it if

all I can think is things that are   

stupid, like he loves me he loves me   

not? I don’t think so. No more

than, some mornings, waking to your   

hands around me, and remembering   

these are the fingers, the hands I’ve

over and over given myself to, I can   

stop myself from wondering does that   

mean they’re the same I’ll grow   

old with. Yesterday, in the café I   

keep meaning to show you, I thought   

this is how I’ll die maybe, alone,

somewhere too far away from wherever   

you are then, my heart racing from   

espresso and too many cigarettes,   

my head down on the table’s cool   

marble, and the ceiling fan turning   

slowly above me, like fortune, the

part of fortune that’s half-wished-

for only—it did not seem the worst   

way. I thought this is another of   

those things I’m always forgetting   

to tell you, or don’t choose to   

tell you, or I tell you but only

in the same way, each morning, I

keep myself from saying too loud I

love you until the moment you flush

the toilet, then I say it, when the

rumble of water running down through

the house could mean anything: flood,

your feet descending the stairs any

moment; any moment the whole world,

all I want of the world, coming down.