I don’t usually write love poems
for no good reason but
it’s about time because now
especially now when so many of us feel
not despair exactly but frustration
anxiety from Covid
and politics too much anxiety
I still believe in love.
Not the kind you buy with a card
a box of chocolates (we who love
chocolates should eat them every day)
but love that’s not so narrowly
defined (grandchildren) the love that can
happen when a stranger on a park bench
tells you a story about how his son
who lives in Los Angeles
didn’t talk to him for five years
even on birthdays
met him at last at a coffee shop
and ended up marrying the woman
the storyteller was sitting with
(for reasons of work) and I who
am listening to the stranger’s story
love him for telling me his story
and love his son for marrying the woman
the stranger barely knew.