*

Perhaps it is the way Love’s promoted;
You’d think it came in a jar,
Something that could be spread
Over all that bothers us,
A heal-all, a wound cream,
A media promoted fairytale
Gutted of darkness.

Though its contradictions
Nail us to each other
And the hunger for it
Can be our undoing,
We still use it as a prop,
As proof we are living.

How hard to do other than
Give it precedence, forgetting
How friendship outlives it,
Commits fewer crimes,
Wears its name at times.

Brian Patten (yet again)