There is so much good poetry in the world...

...and there is so much I've yet to read and still I attempt to write. Really, I have to shake my head at my own optimism.

I've posted the work of Kim Addonizio here before. I've shared this one with a few friends, but thought I'd just post it here too.

I like how raw it is...I particularly adore these lines: "You know/where she's headed, you know she'll wake up/with an ache she can't locate and no money/and a terrible thirst"

You Don't Know What Love Is

You don't know what love is

but you know how to raise it in me

like a dead girl winched up from a river. How to

wash off the sludge, the stench of our past.

How to start clean. This love even sits up

and blinks; amazed, she takes a few shaky steps.

Any day now she'll try to eat solid food. She'll want

to get into a fast car, one low to the ground, and drive

to some cinderblock shithole in the desert

where she can drink and get sick and then

dance in nothing but her underwear. You know

where she's headed, you know she'll wake up

with an ache she can't locate and no money

and a terrible thirst. So to hell

with your warm hands sliding inside my shirt

and your tongue down my throat

like an oxygen tube. Cover me

in black plastic. Let the mourners through.