Poem of the Week: 9.7.23

"Late Love Poem" by Ricky Novaes de Oliveira

LATE LOVE POEM

by Ricky Novaes de Oliveira

After, in plush, I am left 
over on her queen bed:
I am yesterday’s concha 
pink, dry, crumbling:
She is sweet ichor, willing
refreshing my mouth 
with wet and words
my cold appendages, wanting 
more warmth, she spoons
her watercolor heart
pooling into mine

if the stars are aligned
I can’t see them 
through the crack in the blinds
if the time is right
I want her to tell me
with my arm holding her dawn
she whispers everything 
dreaming beside me

“I need some water” she whispers
to me, only, and I return
a few words about having you
getting it for you 
being right back
in her fridge is a plum
I do not eat, but later, when it’s over, 
I’ll wish I had

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Love is in the air in this LAX terminal.

Not really—I was just getting some flirty eyes from a gal also waiting for some coffee by gate 13. I’m heading to a wedding, so love is on the mind. Even if it’s not specifically in my heart.

Love poems are tough for me. It’s easy to get cheesy, hard to be profound. We all think we know love, or at least an angle of it, from experiences that bite and burn. Can a single twenty-something year-old really have much to say about humankind’s most personal struggle? I gave it my best shot in this poem I wrote a few years ago, but have been editing lately.

“Late Love Poem” is about knowing you’re in love when it’s too late, or realizing the potential of love that was/could have been. There’s the lyrical “I” navigating a post-hook-up scene, with imagery and enjambment to color the mood. A lot of gerunds—a beating heart. The poem ends with a conspicuous allusion to William Carlos Williams (“I have eaten / the plums”) but the action is inverted, becoming a hindsight regret rather than a confident decision of love.

I’m still feeling her stare, so I’ll share one more love poem before I go. One of my favorite love poems. (Warning: it’s explicit. It’s Bukowski!) If you have time to read it, it’s worth it: “The Shower” considers the crude, almost raw, physical nature of intimacy before revealing the tender vulnerability with which we clutch onto a love knowing it must one day go. Writing on my phone, so excuse the unformatted link:

https://allpoetry.com/poem/8509525-The-Shower-by-Charles-Bukowski

<3, Ricky