NEW! Poem by Doug Ramspeck

Doug Ramspeck

LOVE THEORY

The argument, I think, was over medieval bishops
using a mace instead of a sword to circumvent
canonical law admonishing against the spilling
of blood. Or about the term fin-de-siècle
and the origins of “sweetypants.”
And then about what chemical can be used to burn off
a single layer of your skin or the way the words
sex and mockingbird are not interchangeable
but could be if only we’d agree
to start saying, “Look at that beautiful
sex singing from the shagbark tree,”
or, “I mockingbirded her good last night.”
Which is not the same thing as whether
a mace can bludgeon and maim and kill
without shedding a single drop of uncanonical blood,
which is not the same thing as whether
great planetary system makes a promising
metaphor for love, which is not the same thing
as whether there is more beauty or horror
in the enormous chandelier of human bones
hanging from the chapel in Sedlec
in the Czech Republic. All there was was argument.
And then, later, we heard a mockingbird
singing from a shagbark tree.