Brought to Love

ROBERT DUNCAN

BROUGHT TO LOVE

like a woman

brought to childbirth-

inexorable love. It is the necessity

that defies pleasure

or caring. A destiny in all that we love, |

a bleeding heart.

It is the convention of Valentine,

surrounded by the lace and violets,

by pretty blood;

the flowers, modest-surrounded

by modesty.

A man brought so-"my bloody life" -

to love at all.

Even the cats, as they must be,

betrayd by our nature

because they are loved. There is no

not making the vow

and breaking it. Breaking it at all

breaking heart-as bread-no poem

without such a moment, broken, conquerd

only by what we did not know

of the design. A dictate, the heart of things

towards wholeness

restores order

In order to: