I Want the Certainty of Love in Another Language

You walked in like the light
From every sun that rose 
This year had exploded
Symmetrically from your eyes
I was uncertain—no I was certain 
I wanted your eyes to shoot 
Laser beams straight through me
It was certain we were soon to be
Bound by something mythological
It was certain that when you moved
The hair away from my mouth 
A locust in your eyes 
Moved farther afield
It was uncertain if one day
We would be saying 
I will not love you
The way I love you presently
It was certain we spoke
The danger language of deer
Moving only when moving 
Our velvet bodies in fear

Credit

About this Poem

“I suppose the heart of this poem is about how love can be lost to a difference in ‘language.’ I was thinking about how much certainty uncertainty possesses—the same way light needs darkness to make forms. I was thinking about the velvet deer from a past poem that continues to reappear in new poems like a ghost.”

Author

Christie Ann Reynolds

Christie Ann Reynolds is the author of Revenge for Revenge (Coconut Books, 2012). She has a BA in English and creative writing from Hofstra University and an MFA in poetry from The New School. She teaches at Metropolitan Montessori School and the Borough Writing Workshops, and is the cocurator of the Stain of Poetry reading series in Brooklyn, New York, and a member of the Poetry Brothel. Reynolds lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Date Published

01/27/2014