Simple As Soap
from Falling Past Love by Tobin James Mueller
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click here to play mp3 of poem performed by Gregory DelTufo


I have tried
to balance you against the weights of the world,
to count you like change amid the clutter of my pockets,
to fit you within the rows and columns of the daily crossword,
to judge you before the 24 hour news is able to repeat itself again,
to read you like a box score at the bottom of the screen.
To find you in prayers, behind altars, reaching down from clouds.
But I do not love you within the world. I love you before it.
There is you. And there is the world.

My love makes God a verb.
You god me. I god you. We god Us.
It is that simple. Your love remakes me a greater I am.
Ours was my Beginning, is Now and ever shall Be,
and all else tumbles out after, Amen.

My love drills happy holes through my body,
places for you to slide, caught and wanting.
And if there are holes left behind, I guard them like holy places.

And float lighter than tracing paper past the galleries of masters.
This is ease. This is breath. This is what dreams come to.

Love as simple as soap.

I wash off all unwanted complications,
when your mouth opens
into mine.


text © 2004 Tobin James Mueller