When A Poet is in Love with You

My friend once told me that she isn’t quite sure if the poet she knows is in love with her. I told her I’m not a poet but I think I have an idea how she may be able to tell. I told her that trying to know if a poet is in love with you is like reading Mandarin Chinese backwards with an accent that is half British and half something else, and she was like “What?” and I told her “Exactly!” The poet who is in love with you will try to make you understand even if it means he has to twist his tongue like a pretzel because love is the silliest language of all.

I told her: when a poet is in love with you, I suppose there are things he will say and there are things he will not say. He will tell you that every kiss will taste like all the poems he can write, and yet none can ever be as delicious as the flavor of your lips because there is a greater hunger inside him that no verse can ever satisfy. He will tell you that the dictionary is a list of a million useless definitions expecting a sentence, as though they have been accused of the complex crime of not making any sense because your name, believe me, your name is my favorite word and you alone hold its meaning.

And she was like, “Uh-huh.”

I told her: when a poet is in love with you, there are things he will say and there are things he will not say. The most random truths will surface and race at the tip of his tongue until he can no longer hold them back, so to silence the words he will tell you instead about the sun, of all things. And the stars. And the sky. And the moon. And the ocean and the clouds. And the birds and the bees and the flowers and trees and my God just look at how beautiful you are even if love is blind.

And she was like, “What did you say?” I knew quite well that she wasn’t deaf. I just wasn’t so sure about her heart, though.

I told her: when a poet is in love with you, there are things he will say and there are things he will not say. His lips will talk



but it is his heart that will speak. And all the while he’ll be thinking please don’t look at me please don’t look at me please don’t look at me because if you do he will have to stop in the middle of his sentence because



because in your eyes I can see our grandchildren and the next sixty years of our lives. Or maybe all I’m seeing is my future that has nothing to do with you, and if that is the case I swear to God I really swear I’d be a poet. And. Make. You. The. Story. Of. My. Life.

And she was like, “Hmmm...”

I told her: when a poet is in love with you, there are things he will say and there are things he will not say. He will tell you — no, no, he will remember you and every inch of who you are, like a book he yearns to memorize, so that even after when the pages are gone he will still be able to tell the world your story again, and again, and again, because isn’t it nice when even for once I can hold the love of my life?

And she was like, “Are you hitting on me?” She was smiling.

And when a poet is in love with you, I told her, he will tell you when.

A poet.

Is in love.

With you.

But he will not tell you who this poet is, because there are things he will not say. Because maybe he is not really a poet.

Maybe he is just your friend, pretending to know a thing or two about poets who are in love.