L.Ode

Jane L. Carman


What is life?

Liquid as love flowing through/following loss

driving by/diving in lust

divides pieces of the lost

leans toward edges, ready to leap


desires/dreads the leap

backward into the apparition of a life

lived, pursing against the lost days

of emphatic lore, of love

hums nymphet lust looming loss


a prepubescent loss

looking for a loose edge, holding the leap

toward pints and milliliters of lust

toward a perception of life

a compass spinning, N, W, E, S, landing on Love

always landing on L for love or lost


a little lo and lost

drowning beneath waves of loss

or madness in love

as want preaching/predicting an unavoidable leap

beginning and ending one life

disgusted in/disguised as lust


little de-lo(res) lust

cunning and lost

in the mauling hands of life

mourning un(imagined) loss

daring to leap

toward the maw of a trap, the anti(love)


What is love?

residing in terrors of lust

willing little dolls to leap

humming of innocence preserved and lost

gasping and grasping (a)voiding loss maintaining life


love is lost is lust is loss
is a leap through life

Euphemism Campus Box 4240 Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-4240