I love you like ladybugs love windowsills, love you
like sperm whales love squid. There’s no depth
I wouldn’t follow you through. I love you like
the pawns in chess love aristocratic horses.
I’ll throw myself in front of a bishop or a queen
for you. Even a sentient castle. My love is crazy
like that. I like that sweet little hothouse mouth
you have. I like to kiss you with tongue, with gusto,
with socks still on. I love you like a vulture loves
the careless deer at the roadside. I want to get
all up in you. I love you like Isis loved Osiris,
but her devotion came up a few inches short.
I’d train my breath and learn to read sonar until
I retrieved every lost blood vessel of you. I swear
this love is ungodly, not an ounce of suffering in it.
Like salmon and its upstream itch, I’ll dodge grizzlies
for you. Like hawks and skyscraper rooftops,
I’ll keep coming back. Maddened. A little hopeless.
Embarrassingly in love. And that’s why I’m on
the couch kissing pictures on my phone instead of
calling you in from the kitchen where you are
undoubtedly making dinner too spicy, but when
you hold the spoon to my lips and ask if it’s ready
I’ll say it is, always, but never, there is never enough.

Love Poem Without a Drop of Hyperbole in It By Traci Brimhall