Habits of Romance

Lately my romances have smelled of lilac. They in turn remind me of my childhood, picking flowers and sipping on the stem of tubular petals, each imparted with only a fragrance of edible nectar that barely the tongue could taste. It is only after the flavor escapes your senses that you reach back to pick another.

I pretend to believe I know now what I understood then: that the scent of spring’s bloom is an experience worthy of indulgence. In contrast I have found myself with less desire for romance’s passions, as my eyes drift further and further away from where I am told they ought to lie… and they lie.

Each one of them smells like the taste of lilac. Each as sweet to the tongue during such transient moments that only seem to me to occur when scented with an air of imagination.

I used to think I could eat a pound of lilacs.

I loved the way they pretended to taste.

*

They say love is war

but I say love is lilacs—

pluck some petals

suck the nectar

and on to the next

flower, field,

alternate lilac universe.

I can’t say exactly

where or what the taste

reminds me of

but I know it’s fleeting—

it’s a fleet-footed Iberian lynx,

near-extinct,

I’ve never even seen one

except in some middle school textbook

and some movie and maybe

a few dreams here and there.

So I suppose love isn’t war

or lilacs or really anything

but preconceived notions

and cinema-spawned idealizations

and Muse-induced REM.

Anything but a momentary

cottonmouth-quenching sip

on my long kismet trip across the desert.

Author's note: This piece was written as a collaboration with another Denver writer and poet KG Newman.
His is the second half of this piece. A link to more of his excellent work is here.