(erica jong, from half-lives)

& if it wasn’t love,
if you called me now
across the old echo chamber of the ocean
& said:
“Look, I never loved you,”
I would feel
a little like a fool perhaps,
& yet it wouldn’t matter.

My business is to always feel
a little like a fool
& speak of it.

& I am sure
that when we love
we are better than ourselves
& when we hate,
worse.

& even if we call it madness later
& scrawl four-letter words
across those outhouse walls
we call our skulls—
we stand revealed
by those sudden moments
when we come together.