A Sort-Of Love Poem

This poem is not your regular erotic;
The usual metaphors of fruit and flowers,
the sweetness of vegetable amours,
do not apply: we are not viney lovers.
No, we see used moonflowers, limp
on the concrete at dawn and laugh
at their resemblance to condoms killed.
Venus does not rule here, but Mars.

You lean close to my ear and the whisper
of my name becomes an arrow hissing
by my cheek. You bury lightening strikes
into my earth; I break open, a gibberish of breasts
and mouth against the volley of your fingertips
and blasts of deprivation,
and, alas, my wide wound weeps
with glowing sorrow.

Infiltrate, dear enemy. Bury your dead deep
behind my lines, and then, perhaps, wild grape
will grow to mark our mutual surprise.
Later, when the sun comes again through
the stained glass window to scar the wall
above my bed with blue light,
surely, our peace will be stained
with strong blood metaphors, oh, my sudden soul,
is this birdsong?

-Kitty Yanson