from The Philadelphia Inquirer
Love: The End of the 20th Century
Monday, December 27, 1999
I used to call it like this: stun gun, flamethrower,
harpoon, maimer. Whatever the charge, the scarred heart
followed; I loved like an army at the brink of war –
all battle plans and camouflage, shoot to kill, seizures.
The romance: first tear gas, then morphine, nights
of white heat, sutures, slash and burn, shock. But then,
right at the end of the 20 th century, in the year of the
hostage,
as if dropped by chopper, a bomb that didn’t explode –
you, conscientious objector, accident, rapture,
and me, auto-maim and rapid fire. Then the words I’ll carry
to the other side changed: mercy, surrender, standdown,
light. Though I’m no diplomat, no ambassador
of peace talks and treaties, I know the ricochet,
the ambushed heart. I may be dangerous but
Teresa Leo
The author lives and writes in Philadelphia. Her poem, provided courtesy of Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania, is one of a series on the Commentary Page celebrating the turn of the year/the century/the millennium/everything.