any love
that comes to us
is a love that must
sooner or later go.
This much we know, but
to make it
even more deceptive,
think of all
the disconcerting
aliases it uses—
pity and self-
loathing,
pride and fear
and avarice.
And notice, when all
of these feelings
flea,
how each one
inevitably seems
to leave the same way—
at roughly same speed,
and from roughly
the same place.
But luckily, as those
who've invested
in beauty can attest,
beauty is not a feeling;
beauty is a space.
In fact, it's the space
where all of those fugitive
feelings were living;
and, of course, even after
a fugitive leaves,
the place
where it was living
stays.