Cupid's Calendar
It is not my custom to question a god
(Especially one so maligned by fashion),
but why did Cupid claim February?
Could any month to Cupid's soul
bear less likeness? February
is a barren, burglar of hope;
more love I have found in the other eleven,
than in February's dry, dim days.
than in February's dry, dim days.
In January's winds one wheels like a
scholar, back book-bent, who has just
straightened anew after long study to see
the librarian is fair-sculpted. Warlike
March, mighty in the meeting of sun
and snow, for lovers I have known is far
more the model. April, May, and June:
amicable maiden gypsies, dancing
with joyous madness upon flower
and blade. Beware the heat
in July's green gaze--dark trysts in damp
woods without way of return. August,
aches for cool beach beds under a
honey moon while rum drums in the veins.
Schoolboy September, skips careless under
sapphire skies until, suddenly stooping,
he finds joy in the flavor of books
being carried for a fair-faced friend.
November and December, not lovers,
true, but love--grandmothers, grace, and bread dough.
Apart, October; Oh October, of your
painted face some would paint a slattern
but I know no temptress are you--
instead a rushing, roaring inevitability.
Cupid cannot catch you, but still he pursues.
And your wood-fire, gourd-fire,
leaping-leaf-fire ferocity
draws him upward, upward, ever upward,
as camp smoke draws the eyes of two lovers
from each other's cartographied bodies
to the gaze of the galaxy's endless stars.
by Joseph Salvatore Knipper
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