19 of 30

Love is everywhere

like cigarette butts on the sidewalk

outside a poetry reading. Like fear

on a airplane. Not one looming thing

but a growing sense you notice

one day. Like cell phones.

Like SUVs and junk

mortgages in the young

millennium. Like all kinds

of progress: the turning

that marks days and

the fearful velocity that measures

years. Love is everywhere

like internet advertising--

we tolerate and pretend it's the same

thing as ignoring. Out of the thousands

of suckers, someone really did

get rich quick, swallowed the miracle

fruit, obeyed the one weird old rule.

It was easy for someone. Our hopes crouch 

beneath the open window.