Love Poems

I met you when I was 40
I met you because I was the black sheep of the new family
I met you because you were the black sheep of the old family
I met you at a Denny’s

Valentine’s Day by Martha Hayes After our birthday party, I took the picture. You and your new bicycle: a shiny ten-speed whose spokes spun fireworks when the sun caught you in flight. My new lens drew you out of that winter day. My nose pressed against the cold plastic like your first signs of womanhood…

The Grapefruit by Lauren Hunt My fingers barely close around the grapefruit. I feel the weight and size of it, how the rind gives And stretches and rolls in the palm of my hand, The missing half of a long forgotten morning prayer. This grapefruit is a memory, aged but precious. I am a child…

the spring garden
passionate love poem
softly echoes
my longing for you
but now emptiness

Let us long because we are to be filled…
that is our life, to be exercised by longing
-Saint Augustine