How To Write A Love Poem People Won’t Roll Their Eyes At   
L Mari Harris 

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I probably shouldn’t begin with something cheesy like
You complete me. Besides, that would be a lie. Something more
 
prosaic, more between the errands & tossing
another load in, more drawing lines through the honey-
 
do list, how you barely grumble anymore when I remind you
to clean the gutters. Or I can bring up those days
 
in our beginning, when I was pretty
sure you were also seeing that bottle blonde
 
at the tavern one town over (& if you ever
put that fishing pole down long enough to hear
 
read my words, you’ll learn I had a few
big fish hooked as well back then). Or I could throw
 
everyone for a loop & describe how we go
country road ditch driving to pick elderberries & sumac
 
—no fancy dinners out all googly eyed, playing footsy
under the table because we still can’t keep
 
our hands off each other (do they know sumac
tea tastes like lemonade, or how many elderberries
 
it takes to make a quart of jam? :It does, & more than you think:
if you played footsy with me now, I’d ask
 
if you were having a foot cramp?). Would it be too saccharine
to proclaim that you saved me? Too hyperbolic? What some
 
more haughty types would bluster You haven’t suspended
my disbelief? I write what I know. You
 
saved me. Like giving my soul over
to Jesus, reborn in the clear river water
 
of this marriage. (Is the Jesus analogy
a little over the top?) How about like those settled Sunday
 
mornings when the lost are still sleeping it off
from the night before, not yet regretting what they will
 
wake up next to, while I heat up the skillet
until the butter shimmers, drop my Johnny
 
cake batter ladle by ladle, watching
for the bubbles to appear, for you
 
to arise. This house, these acres: we call
dibs, gate locked to the curious & the intruder.
 
 
 









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About the Author: 
L Mari Harris splits her time between Nebraska and the Ozarks. She works as a copywriter in the tech industry. Follow her on Twitter @LMariHarris and read more of her work at www.lmariharris.wordpress.com.

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