For E, Who Asks Me How I Loved So Many Before Her
       

One was a truck rolling toward me in reverse.
One was a mouthful of bourbon I never swallowed.
One I loved the way a shadow loves the ground it lives on.
One like an old photo in an antique store.
Two loves were trains huffing toward each other
on a track I'd already tied myself to.
One love was fire blooming in my throat, every breath black smoke.
One was an ice chip under a hot tongue. I was the tongue.
The longest love was a sun-drunk house that held all the others inside it.
The shortest walked past my window then disappeared.
My favorite I loved like a razor on my forearm.
My worst was a two-way mirror.
The last I loved like a trap door. Listen—
only one did I love without a need for metaphor.

Tweet
Copyright © 2022 Rochelle Hurt All rights reserved
from 32 Poems
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission