A Love Poem

My sister-in-law, a fabulous poet named Sarah Diehl, got me a subscription to The American Poetry Review. I rarely feel worthy to receive such a publication, and I don't always get the poems, but I really liked one by David Rivard from the July/August 2008 issue. It's a love poem, and I have a hard time finding ones I like. I have a book edited by Garrison Keillor called, Good Poems, and he has it divided by sections, one of which is Love, and I don't like many of those. It's hard to find the right tone in a love poem--not too sappy or sentimental, not too abstract or conceptual that the reader can't feel it too, or so particular that the poem only applies to the poet's beloved.

Some of the lines in Rivard's poem--which I've included below--feel too particular to mean something to me, but overall I got such a feeling of intimacy and tenderness in the poem it brought tears to my eyes. The last few lines, a quote from Virgil, I found heartbreakingly beautiful and a perfect encapsulation of the kind of love I've been lucky enough to find with my husband. See what you think:

Forehead

I love you
I know as much as anything
for your courage
so companionably invisible
as it is
that it passes mostly
as simple
good sense. I don't mean you're
practical at all--god forbid--
only persistent
as far as dying brothers & cold calls
are concerned--not violent,
not weak, but like a lantern afloat on a wave
open if necessary
to sinking your light
offshore. Onshore
I am as you would know
strongly sometimes
impatient & inside a swarm of loud thoughts
self-absorbed & locked-up.
If you were to die
who would remove me
from those thoughts?
When you lean your forehead
against mine
what you hear inside there
are all those
sounds likely, vibrations
like windowpanes rattled by headland squalls
or bullet trains
late forever & loaded down
with passengers green
as hoodie-wearing witches.
I lean my forehead against
your forehead
gently knowing both
will shortly vanish.
"First of all," says Virgil, "find
a protected place
for the bees
to make their
honey, a place that's
safe from the wind."


If you like this poem, David Rivard's books include Sugartown (Graywolf, 2006) and Bewitched Playground (Graywolf, 2000) among others.