Love Poem

for Donal

by James Davis, on love

I say orange is your color.

You say cute-animal is mine,

alluding to my raccoon sweatshirt,

my llama-face chullo,

my Ralph Lauren chinos embroidered

with bulldogs—not pugs.

Leave it to me to insist on the breed.

Leave it to me to flaunt my wardrobe

in a love poem to you,

my cute-animal-colored human,

slender, silvering, velvety stoat,

creature whose comforts

distance and circumstance abstract.

I honor fauna on my person

to show my world the way I ache

for yours—for Dumpling, the shadow

whose theatrical hunger wakes us

rare mornings we share your bed.

The otter on my tank top holds a starfish

and squeaks “Go outside & play”

to all the students in this coffeeshop.

Will they see through the silkscreen

to my chest’s wilds, to the pink,

trembling joey of my heart?

I’m stuck on that word, amateur,

its love maligned when it should be revered.

Like my fashion and my poetry,

my love for you is amateurish, must be.

Every day, I love you

by failing to love you enough.

Instead of you, I touch the menagerie

of t-shirts sold beside the coffee:

two iridescent dolphins hawking Sea World,

a disembodied Yorkie head named DAISY, 

an ambush of tigers pleading to survive.

I leave my laptop open to this poem,

my love for you unfinished, harebrained, glowing.