All Polar Bears Are Left-Handed

All Polar Bears Are Left-Handed

   

She knew a lot of things

that made her quirkily appealing,

yet she also knew the impossibility

of us – like trying to lick your own elbow,

she said, it just can’t happen.

Further, you look dumb even trying.

The strongest muscle in the body

is the tongue, and she exercised hers

regularly, scolding me against falling

in love, as if it were something

over which I had any control. I was

smitten, even though she did all she could

to refute my compliments, deny my praises,

and parry them deftly with comments

that showed careful indifference.

Where is the key to your heart?

With Mona Lisa’s eyebrows, she said.

In other words, I have no heart.

She blinked her eyes as if to convey

her cleverness. Even I knew that

women blink nearly twice as much as men.

I consoled myself with that knowledge,

blinking back tears of resignation,

turning away from her latest torrent

of negation, wishing I was a snail,

able to sleep for three years,

then return to register any change

that might have occurred since.

When will you ever love me back,

I ask again, tired of this

incessant disappointment.

When did waking snails learn to speak?

I turn more human every time

she rejects or ignores me.

When, she says, you wonder when

you’ll get the answer that you seek,

perhaps it will be when you cease to try,

or when a pig looks toward the sky.

With all her smarts, she could not discover

how logic eludes the heart of a lover

Gary Glauber

Gary Glauber is a poet, fiction writer, teacher, and former music journalist.  His works have received multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. His two collections, Small Consolations (Aldrich Press) and Worth the Candle (Five Oaks Press), and a chapbook, Memory Marries Desire (Finishing Line Press), are available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and directly from the publishers.