Acknowledgements

I love you like the first almonds and limes. I love you the way a mountain has jagged rocks... I love you the way the sea has both waves and green swell, the way the duck has an evening and morning on the lake, the way a lighthouse has a light and a place to point to, the way a man is nothing except for the earth that buries him yet gives him his food, the way a mother holds an infant and sends him to war, the way the moon breaks the waves into curves and circles yet silvers the winter trees and its corners hook the points of thoughts, swell the tides, light the way for the caravans in ancient deserts, ... my love for you is exactly the way on earth as it is in heaven, the swirl of galaxies, the means of measuring great distances: distances so vast they cannot be measured in the generations born and died, in the generations yet to come that any man can possibly imagine, the way the world was created, the means of its destruction in the nth of time... my angers are not the anger of a man alone but of the way the thunder needs to crackle its airless mass, it is the way in which the tectonic plates of earth open the chasm beneath.... I love you like sun glints on frozen windows where little boys play by putting warm pennies against the glass to get little windows to the street, the way the coin cools his hand, the way pens write on paper, smooth, black or blue scrawls, intense, the way snow crackles under the feet of lovers who walk around and round while a cell phone rings; I love you the way clouds set in the heavens over broken buildings, grey and white, threatening sun or rain; I love you the way the street smells after a rain, the way a boy jumps the pavement on his skateboard, the way an ugly girl smiles and her softened eyes make me realize there’s no such thing as ugly, the way in which the market throngs with sellers and buyers, the way an apricot tastes, the way the greens show their many shades under fluorescent lights, the way a lake sits in such a way it can’t help lap at the tender shore, the way a rock skips across a sea, the way a broken stone reveals its true beauty, the way a school with broken windows show their blackened teeth on a weekend walk to a man alone, the way the papier maché hangs there, the way the cars swoosh swoosh past the stalled streetcar taking on passengers, the surly driver holding the transfer so the patron has to reach to grab it, the way the light glints on the streetcar tracks, the way the driftwood sits just so, its downside up, the way a man passes another and smiles, I love you... I love you... I love you just like that.

The way copper turns green, winter turns white, leaves fall, yellow underfoot, butter-hued; the way a child lets go of her mother’s hand, an alien comes to a foreign land, stone stands on stone, crumbles, the way canola waves its yellow, forsythia the first of spring, the way my vase sits on my table, a little tea in the bottom of a glass, the way the wind feels on a cold day, rain on a sidewalk, patter of red tiny boots, the way withered breasts hang, the way hair lies on the floor of a barber shop or sawdust at the butcher’s, the way Socrates the fishmonger smiles his crooked smile, the way Maria, who sells apricots and other fruits, rice and Turkish delight helps me pack my groceries and took them out of the hand of the woman I knew before you, the way Eric smiled his crooked boyish smile, poor Eric dead so young (“I have not hoped for much my friend but I hope you die young”) the way uneven boards lie above stairs, the way a twitter-twit hops on its twig-like legs, the way you say my butt is no butt at all but leg-tops, the way you took my arm and touched my hand, the three kisses on my neck, the way you said yes, the way the old man, the hunchback braves the years and gravity, the way the con-man asks for money, the way my chequebook’s so unused, the way the twilight, the way thought works, the way the stomach growls, the way dogs howl, the way the husks lie under the Eucalyptus, the way the wasps love Kosher bait—all honey and dough—the gaps in the teeth of children: Deny if you like, deny it til the day you die; acknowledge it or not but all of these—all of these are the ways I love you.

© Dan Goorevitch 2008