How to Love

After stepping into the world again,

there is that question of how to love, 

how to bundle yourself against the frosted morning—

the crunch of icy grass underfoot, the scrape 

of cold wipers along the windshield—

and convert time into distance. 

 

What song to sing down an empty road

as you begin your morning commute?

And is there enough in you to see, really see, 

the three wild turkeys crossing the street 

with their featherless heads and stilt-like legs

in search of a morning meal? Nothing to do 

but hunker down, wait for them to safely cross. 

 

As they amble away, you wonder if they want 

to be startled back into this world. Maybe you do, too, 

waiting for all this to give way to love itself, 

to look into the eyes of another and feel something— 

the pleasure of a new lover in the unbroken night, 

your wings folded around him, on the other side 

of this ragged January, as if a long sleep has ended.

By - January Gill O’Neil is the author of Misery Islands (CavanKerry Press, 2014) and Underlife (CavanKerry Press, 2009). She is executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and teaches at Salem State University in Salem, Massachusetts.