Love Poem: The Promise
Joe Dimino Avatar
Written by: Joe Dimino

The Promise

Sometimes love
is not my first impulse,
guts and bandages
a lethal cocktail
for the heart;
when good-times
have lost
much their appeal,
one never seems 
too old
for heartbreak--

A great deal of my life
spent in hospitals
and transit vehicles,
counseling the poor
and possessed;

I think, for me
a hillside
as did Frances,
were those friends
not so difficult to pin down 
most everything now-days 
subjugated by lawyers—or a lounge chair
at the foot of an old fig tree
in my yard (we have
a shady bet between us
about longevity) 
my personal preference
to warning bells
and the hiss of fake air,
while his aversion
to ants vs firewood--

we have
a promise.