“Love: A Series of Comparisons” by Quentin Freeman

not the businessman and his nameless smiling wife, picturesque
but the two women wary to hold hands in front of their parents
not the late night love letters that he wrote in a fervor, infatuated
but the laughter, eyes watering, cheeks red, early morning heaving laughter that you can’t stop
not the first time you kissed the bronze boy on the beach where you spent all your summers
but the love affair between the moon and tides, how hard the moon pulls the sea to her
not the sculpted face and the makeup smoothed over the bruise on her cheek that he still kisses
but the painter and her worlds that are smeared all over her palms in yellow ochre.

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