I WRITE LOVE POEMS BECAUSE.....

 I write love poems with a wayward hand. Somewhere in a corner, 
there's an oblique shadow that I loved beyond torture, 
one day, a minute at a time. I remember the curve of his neck,
 but not his name. (My truest loves slept in cradles.) He was like all the rest, hardly there, teaching an unlearning, but loved, nevertheless, in the hundred imperfect ways that love transcends. 

I write love poems to recall that  something,  somewhere  was good and bright,  
took my breath away, had me floating on the helium of happiness.  
Words unwind, reveal the truth that I always left,  undone by love's own lock and key.  
Upon the page, in boldest ink, I write,
 Should I have stayed?

I write love poems because I'm old - time-swept ciphers for  memory's autumn. Love will not come again, not as a carnival with  drums,
 but perhaps quietly, slipping between the sheets,
 summoning a last breeze to shapeshift bones into graceful age,
 fiercesome in its fading light, and laughing 
at the wonder of its many roads.