Rusty coins

Half of love is squandered on unworthy things

and the other half still kept aside for special use
through the break the years fall, and fall the springs
what’s gone is gone, and what’s left slowly devalues
the currency of love rusts, the coins aren’t shining
they glow only when they’re spent, and rot in disuse.

The migrant birds that fly out with the white tipped wings

in torn chevrons sharp against the twilight blues
they seem too common to deserve any special loving
their flights too routine, predictable, to amuse
the same mundane motifs repeat at all beginnings
and end without any drama over which to enthuse.

The grasses grow deep, at the horizon the evenings

bloom into a purple darkness, in ones and twos
the stars come in, a chiffon white moon sliver swings
up between the limbs of trees, but resolves no issues
these too are just ordinary, none of them brings
out that special love, there’s nothing to choose.

And so love is picky, and so inevitably the pickings

get slimmer and slimmer while it fusses and reviews
what it can afford to throw away, and what it’s keeping
it ends up too self-absorbed, and easy to confuse
And so it loses both halves of itself and there is nothing
left in its hands except rusty coins, and residues.