Josh Lefkowitz: “Love Poem After Reading Neruda’s Sonnet XVII”

Love Poem After Reading Neruda’s Sonnet XVII

                                                          “I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
                                                          or the arrow of carnations the fire brings…”
	                                                              - Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
mostly because I don’t know what either of those things are.
I suppose I could look them up on Wikipedia,
but that would take me away from my loving you.

I love you the way an original Nintendo cartridge
loves the cool vibrant air blown from a puckered mouth.
I love the night, or dawn, when our two continents Pangea,
even though my Lexapro makes it difficult to finish.

If I am ever maybe murdered after a coup, feel free
to exhume my bones.  If you need extra scratch for groceries
or rent, feel free to publish my posthumous poems.

In truth, you make me feel as if I’ve won the Nobel Prize
of Luck in Love.  Good lord, that’s cheesy!  But that’s okay –
I love cheese, too.  It goes you, then cheese, then the world.