Hemlock wine
Beware of love, o pilgrim.
It’s a barbed hook;
a ball and chain; hemlock wine.
It’s a cliffhanger, a pyramid scheme;
a title loan with ballooning payments.
Love is a lake of fire – I say that
having never entered the flames.
I’m still leaping about on the griddle.
They call You Lord of Love,
Father of Mercy, yet, at times,
I’ve found Your love to be quite merciless.
Forgive my incapacity to understand.
Daily my faith grows without evidence . . .
and love . . . love is an apparition floating by
the window of a haunted mansion.
O child of God, let not the word love escape your lips
until your heart knows enough to speak wisely.
(from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)
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