Editor’s Note: Each word leads to the discovery of unexpected sweetness from the “loco” motion of a powerful love, left to our interpretation, unaffected and unbound from any sense of order.
Writer’s Note: This poem is part of a series of love poems called “Something About the Way,” just out from Kelsay Publishers, first published in Delmarva review, Vol. 13.
Crazy (E) Motion
I found an unwrapped candy
under a hotel bed,
translucent, gelatinous,
pressed from a locomotive mold.
How delightful “loco”
begins locomotive.
Crazy motion!
Whereas I always welcome
unbidden sweetness, this is
Boulder, Colorado, I am
afraid the candy is infused
with tetrahydrocannabinol
and I don’t want to cloud
my love for you. I am a child
who just learned the alphabet.
I want to keep the glittering
letters lined up.
I don’t even want to
string them into words.
⧫
Peter Waldor’s poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Iowa Review, Colorado Review, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Mothering Magazine, and other journals. He is the author of Door to a Noisy Room (Alice James Books), The Wilderness Poetry of Wu Xing (Pinyon Publishing), Who Touches Everything (Settlement House), which won the National Jewish Book Award, The Unattended Harp (Settlement House), State of the Union (Kelsay Books) and Gate Posts with No Gate (Shanti Arts). Website: peterwaldor.com.
Delmarva Review publishes the most compelling new prose and poetry selected from thousands of submissions annually. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, it receives partial financial support from individual contributions and a grant from the Talbot County Arts Council with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. The review is available worldwide from Amazon.com and other major online booksellers and specialty regional bookstores. For more information about the authors, see the website: www.DelmarvaReview.org
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.