The Reconstructed

Love used to be stories:

Knights win princesses

Cowboys untie damsels

Savages capture concubines

Exchanges of property and wealth

the brokerage of Catherine of Braganza

Love was a trade

When it was romanticized

sometimes it started in the schoolyard or the fields

sweethearts and youthful innocence held them like glue sticks

The working class and enslaved once

partnered to build homes or for survival after succumbing to feeling

with no records of their marriage

Men came back from war to ones in waiting

with no records of their waiting

Love looked like labor

When it was utilized

Love was the tool,

Attraction tightening desires for sex and status

To be agreed upon and voted on

And televised for viewing pleasure

Lining one another up, passing around genitalia likes roses

Flicking fingers at screens like coins falling in the fountain

Capitalizing on stimulation, as dreams expand boundaries of desire to blur perversion

Consumers of selfish whimsy

working part-time as pimps and prostitutes,

Love became disposable

Then it was difficult.

And specific and a design that made new colors

Relentlessly devotional, raw and sincere.

It became the fire of existence and rebuke to the world.

It stayed covenantal, a strong chord, a kaleidoscope of tenderness.

Cherished salve to the cracked and crooked heart

Fusing us and what’s left of us back together until

Love existed forever.