Love’s a hitchhiker,
so innocent in its leap
that it doesn’t register
torn seats or sunroofs
but simply hears
come on in
and feels that smile
like a warm winter breeze,

but relationships
are rarely so simple:
the car must be washed
repaired, replaced
and trips planned
and changed with the
frequency of newborns’
diapers amidst increasing
conflict till compromise
shatters
like a windshield at eighty
against a centennial oak

but love, love is not so
complicated—once stripped
of metal and fuel it
shimmers naked, senses
open to sky and skunk,
blizzards and vistas,
and it’s never

blind but radiant as a star
and enigmatic as a body
after the heart’s
final
beat.

Thank you to the editors of The Tishman Review for first publishing this poem.

wpc