Karen Craigo, Poet

Love Poem to Before Pictures

I’m not much for

appearances, but Jesus,

have some dignity.

Brush your hair. Slap on

a little foundation. Try

not to look so surly.

Take heart: We’re all

roughly the same,

deep down—just fleshy

balloon animals, inflated

to different scales,

and we tend to define beauty

in terms of symmetry,

a factor that’s mostly

outside our control.

But oxidation

has everyone’s number.

There’s a death sentence

on every cell. You have

no reason to grimace.

Don’t you know

there’s no love like the after

for the before?

She’ll do anything

to get back to you.

She’ll make it her life’s

purpose. So square

your shoulders. Smile a bit.

Step out into the softer,

gentler light.

 

Love Poem to Prescriptive Grammarians

You worry so. At the rate we’re going,

pretty soon we won’t understand

each other. We’ll stumble blindly

through our once-thriving cities,

splitting infinitives, stopping cold

at prepositions. You tried to tell us

when things start to disintegrate

there’s no way to put them back

together. You snipped away associates

for gross infractions—the wrong there.

Lying when they should lay. Or classic

overcorrections (just between you and I).

But we don’t need words to share our truths.

Ella, her scratch-throated scat song:

she brought power with every syllable.

The interlopers have won. Go home.

Embrace your pajamas, your tête-à-tête.

There’s nothing here for you to save—

the empire already in ruins as the queen

covers herself with a tattered stole.

English can’t love you back. Let us

be Robinson Crusoe and Friday,

coming together, negotiating meaning.

Eventually he got what he wanted—

someone to serve him, to call him Lord.

 

Love Poem to the Symbols of Our Incompetence

The hand can cut like a knife,

but look at you, standing there stunned,

flinging guts of tomatoes

from your fingers. I’ve seen you

fuck up dinner, perplexed

by your still-uncooked potatoes,

checking your watch as if

they’ve missed an appointment.

Who continues to let you near the oven,

sad maroon, dumping noodles

all over your floor? I’d like to suggest

we order in tonight. As yet

there is no gadget to replace you

behind the wheel, you with the depth-

perception and muscle control

of an infant. Why are you working

so hard? Is there no one who loves you,

no one who sees the danger you face

spastically lurching from room to room?

 

Love Poem to the Television Amnesiac

Your first two questions

are perpetually the same: Who

am I? And who are you? And the lover

breaks down but remains

committed. Let’s concede

it would be tempting to walk

out on you, freedom offered

in a wrapped box that fits

precisely in the pocket.

But you are almost

more beautiful for that square

of gauze on your forehead,

and I sense you do not smell

like antiseptic or unbrushed teeth.

Someone has loved you sufficiently

to brush your hair, to fan it

across your pillow just so.

And it’s taken me years

to understand an issue

you pinpoint immediately

upon opening your eyes.

But I have good news for you:

once you know you don’t know

who you are, the problem

disappears. Give yourself a name,

honey. Today is the first day

you can be anyone at all.