I Eat Poetry

Why
by Deborah Warren

How to love a man in whom I see
nothing to love? There's nothing to it:

There's no study, wisdom, judgement,
thought or work -- you only do it.

No one taught me who to love.
What I'd been taught I might unlearn;

but my instructor was whoever
taught the fire how to burn;

and where's the sage who, having made
a docile spark ignite the straw,

can make it cease at his request --
just by invoking reason's law?

You might want some reason I can cite
for loving him? Go ask the sea

about its bondage to the moody
crooked moon. But don't ask me.

Or go command the tide to halt --
to think again -- to justify

pounding the sand -- to lose its salt;
and come back then and ask me why.