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If I Am To Love

If I am to love
might it be full-throated and soaring like a songbird?

If I am to love
might it rumble, cough and spit like an old truck clunking its way home to a gated community of metal parts; a gold and silver paradise of rusty gadgets as far as the eye can see?

If I am to love
might it be a clamorous breath come forth to lift the darkened sky and hold the weary worn that they might greet me with a lover’s lips?

If I am to love
might it be a panic, like that of a terrified people, a family who’ve pulled down their shades to shroud their fears as if the world didn't exist there amid the electronic beeps and lights and the grave rumbling heard just outside their front door?


© 2011 by mark prime

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