What if love is like training for battle?
You spar in dusty hollows surrounded by stony hills
your words pummeling ears buffered by lamb’s wool
reciting your poems in breath scented with anise.

Love has got to be nothing like this paean
praise for her muscular back sweaty cheeks
the feathered helmet masking her golden hair
her supple breast crammed into calloused armor.
Does adoration parallel swooning in combat
the Goddess of War poised to steeple
her sword into your gut?

What if passion is only a little fatality?
A run of Elysian tremor, deep and then dreamless
release from such yearning after a dove coooo cooos
your words surfeit to scents of wild cyclamen
drifting down from Pantokrator Summit.

Love I say
or worship.

[Maggie Koger is a Media Specialist with a writing habit.  She lives and works in Boise (pronounced boysee) and celebrates Le Bois — the trees the city is named for.  She has published poetry in Poet Lore, Avocet, Mused, WestWard Quarterly, and Montucky.]