Before I Meet My Love, I Met My Love

By ARAN DONOVAN 


wait for me. you have perhaps
been out there and married unsuccessfully
to several ladies. you’ve been maybe
like a feudal lord a little
gluttonous with your helpings, have gulped
up overly life’s rations of love and suffering.
ah well. they are delicious.
I come a little late to the whole shebang,
having wasted substantial time
watching grasshoppers
and reading old books. have acquired,
by way of dowry, an excellent recipe for
roasted chicken, some knowledge,
some philosophy, and a few tricks
(non-rhetorical) of the tongue.
we’ll see about that later. I too
am a little tired. a little wind-bit.
but if hope is a thing, it’s coiled
like a kiterope in my stomach pit.
are you waiting for me? let’s
get on with it

 

[Purchase Issue 15 here.]

Aran Donovan lives in New Orleans. Her poetry has recently appeared in Hobart, Juked, and Barnstorm Journal and is forthcoming in Permafrost. She tweets sporadically @barelymarigny. 

Before I Meet My Love, I Met My Love

Related Posts

Image of an orange cupped in a hand

May 2023 Poetry Feature: New Poems by Our Contributors

TIMOTHY DONNELLY
Thorn-blossom! Tender thing, prone to solitude / like yours truly, don’t get it twisted if I reach out my hand— / it isn’t to pluck you, who are my beacon down this path, but a gesture / of acknowledgment common among my kind. / When the lukewarm breezes nod off

Red Lanterns in Night Sky

On Wariness

MYRONN HARDY
There is rhythm on the pavement. / There is rhythm in small / apartment rooms. / I’m over slicing tomatoes. / I’m over drinking wine. / I’m performing as not to be / deformed     as not / to show what I shouldn’t. / I don’t want to feel everything.

Image of two blank canvases on a white wall

Nina and Frida Enter the Chat

FELICE BELLE
these biddies with their deadbolt backs/ take naps / while i construct/ canvas from corset cast / art does not wait until you are well / what they did not understand—the training was classical / chopin, motherfuckers/ carry on like she some backwater bluesy / least common denominator