13 types of love

There is more than one kind of love.
There's the kind that saunters through the rooms
of memory, intricate, reverent.

Love remembered though often falsely.

There is love of lashes and lips, love of touch,
fiercely naked. For how often do we put a hand
to those we purport to love? Haven't we?

Lost love whose spirits wander restlessly.

Sympathetic love whose recipients fail
to set up boundaries, buoyant in their bereavement,
we love them only from the gut, our source of pity.

Immortal love, tender love, bashful love, silent love.

Love of heart for those we only half remember,
grandfathers, great aunts, old neighbors,
teachers, childhood pets.

And then there is knowing love. The kind
that shines through the window, the kind
that gives birth and by extension turns

an afternoon of tedium into a lifetime of hope.

Naturally, I'll do anything. Coercion, deception,
sublimation.