Do Not Try to Date a Poet
She will know that you have read her poetry, that you know her sadness runs wide and shallow. She has spread it like oil spilling across a street. You can see the light reflecting in it like rainbows. She will hate you for finding it beautiful. Do not try to kiss her. She will fall in love with you and hate you
Grace Bawden
all at once. She will write poems about your lips and their tenderness and their force. She will kick back like you are gagging her. She will scream. Do not love her. She will think you an intruder. She thinks herself weak and you a predator. She will seal herself up, run hot candle wax over her poems and when the seal breaks and she spills into your hands She’ll curse you for not being able to hold her together.