Love is a Bella Thing (Reprise)

I've posted an earlier version of this piece before,

but it's been reworked after a few astute comments

in a manuscript group session in a writing workshop

I attended a while ago. So here it is again,

posted in its new incarnation. Hope you don't mind.

Love is a Bella Thing

Sometimes I think that love
is an extraordinary guy

dressed in everyday clothes,
a wily clown that springs tricks
and slaps his knee in delight
at lovers' silly pratfalls.


I'd love to greet him, "Ciao bella!"
the moment he turns the corner,
sticks out his foot and trips me up,
skinning my knee, the one

that's puffed and swollen, the one

that bumps and grinds just like a stripper.

I'd love to serenade him with a song

or beggar Rumi's words recounting -

how fierce like a lion, tender like the evening star -

love dribbled warm and moist in the tender

cracks of his soul. I know, I know, he was talking

about God but love in all its forms is my god.

I'd sure as hell prefer to quote Rumi saying,

"I was dead, then alive. Weeping, then laughing," 

than recall that once I was alive and laughing,

until the assassin struck and love exsanguinated.

But here you are, you clown, you miracle worker.

La dolce vita. So unexpected this close side of death.