To you who are the chirp in my jacket pocket

I felt loved

when I realized how fiercely you protect me
with little words, little ways of manipulating a conversation
to your ends

I was submersed in hot water; I felt myself
cooking, my meat turning from red to gray.
Love drove through my stomach,
a thick, wooden spear
that did not splinter and stayed
there, in me, heavy
and pleasant, enough
to anchor me so I am no longer pulled off course.

Gratefulness welled up in me,
rose in my throat and burst out;
my head thrown back, I open my eyes to the sky,
and my mouth is pushed wide open, jaw aching,
and it pours out, golden, pours up,
and when it is exhausted, I remember your words
and it wells up again,
throws itself out of me so hard my muscles jerk

I want to
lay on you all this light,
shining like yellow hair, like new money;
to cover you with it,
a shield to warm you

I want to cut open my skin and show you
the spear in my belly,
the glistening of the organs around it,
my liver, my gallbladder, my ovaries--
see how clean they are
when my skin is cut open,
when they touch the light and the air.

I want
to give and give and be empty
and be filled and empty
myself again.
I want to hold myself
up for hours and hours until
my arms give out
But what good would that do you?

It isn't beautiful,
this kind of overwhelming response,
knee-jerk, uncontrollable,
breath-crushingly intense,
and it's so obvious that I
am missing something, that I have not
had enough of Love

and that's--
that's a lot to lay on top of you,
to punish you with when all you did
was love me

so I don't know whether to hope that I
can keep it to myself
or to hope that you
would like me to love you, too