"You Should Fall in Love with a Poet" by Danny Fox-Moles

You Should Fall in Love with a Poet

You should fall in love with a poet.
Go ahead.
Give it a shot.
You don’t have a lot to lose, you see,
because first of all

we’re cheap dates.
We don’t need fine wine, expensive filet mignon,
Tthese things are nice,
but we feast instead on your eyes and your hair
and the way your knock-kneed “hello”
stumbles drunkenly from your lips.

You should fall in love with a poet
because we don’t need a whole lot of room to grow
a blank page
an ink-filled pen and
your skin
happen to be
enough topsoil for our affection.

You should fall in love with a poet
because we’re easy to please.
Most days we’re just glad we made it through in one piece.
loneliness, heartache,
that sandpaper glove you wear when shaking hands with our heart
only makes the writing
that much better.

You should fall in love with a poet
because
who else is going to notice
the way sunlight cracks from your vocal chords in the morning

and
who else is going to teach you what stars taste like
or take you dancing
through cannon fire

You should fall in love with a poet
because no one else
is ever gonna get close enough
to let you know that your neck
smells so much
like the gods we wish we believed in

You should fall in love with a poet
because we spend our mornings
studying exactly where you set the dial in your shower
so our arms can learn the temperature
you best like to wrap yourself in at dawn

and you should fall in love with a poet
because we know that lovers
made of part pain
and part hurricane
are the ones worth fighting for

we can see
that those stretch-marks on your skin
are just roadmaps
that led your body
safely back from trauma
and we will never find anything
but beauty
in that.

You should fall in love with a poet
because we may not be the best at fixing people,
but we sure as hell
try the hardest

because
our hands remember things
that faces forget
so when sadness presses down on you
like the sky in October,
we will trace our fingertips down your spine
raise goose bumps on your skin
and read the Braille of your desire

and
if you are ever confused about your past,
we will breathe hot air
on your window-pane skin
and etch the tomes of your history
all three-thousand four-hundred and sixty-seven volumes of it
into the backs of your eyelids
so that even when your eyes are closed,
you will know who you are.

We will stay up nights
dabbing the sweat from your brow
so your forehead
can un-learn its worry-lines

and we’ll play your teeth
like the keys of a broken piano
you see,
we can still play beautiful music
even with just the sad notes.

You should fall in love with a poet
because we know
that some things are fragile.
some things beak.
like hearts.

We know love isn’t a punch-line
and we’re not gonna sell you like some cheap joke.

So tell your faith
to tie it’s leapin’ shoes
and let’s go, darlin’.
Fall in love with me.