A Poem By Rebecca Gonzales

Her Love Story

It’s a strange quilt,
It warms no one.
The pattern is karmic
So inevitable, there are no seams.
It’s mixed metaphors,
Too petty to be tragic.
An eternal game of hide and go seek.

She’ll try to kiss your eyes closed.
Still, don’t let her tell it to you!
Cover your ears.
Walk away before you see her smile fade.
Anything after a first kiss is anticlimactic.
You wouldn’t want to still be in the audience.
What would you do? Applaud?

Rebecca's book Slow Work To The Rhythm
Of Cicadas remains one of the best book
of poems by any Chicano or Chicana poet.