Rather

                            Rather

 

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem 

Imagine that I wrote five trillion times

In Latin, or in Sanskrit, or in Greek

Of Sappho, or in Shakespeare’s sonnet rhymes,

In Homer’s language on the newly sleek,

Mild surface of the sacrificial skins

Of calves, of vellum, using liquids like

The blood of human victims, ink like sins

Adultery would envy, with a spike

An Aztec priest would plunge in hard in love

For Huitzilopochtli, solar God who

Would die without this blood in blue above,

Unless hearts’ blood would spew.

  Would all of this suffice to say how much

    I love you?  I would rather reach and touch.

Phillip Whidden