Love Poem Beginning with Your Biceps
by Lisa Summe
On top of me, putting your hair up,
your biceps twin bridges
I make a home beneath,
cloudless blue sky-
backed architecture,
what I reach for, makes me river,
how despite water
balloon soft hands
you’ve cracked me open,
eggs I won’t eat,
bright & running but buoyed
here & now & last night
& last month & technically
last year, too, which is to say
I think I loved you
long before you said the word
love can get diluted
as anything water can be
added to, loved you
before love’s possibility
blooming in the floral
tea I’ve forgotten the name of
though not the taste,
but I remember
the photo you showed me
of your brother in a suit
on our first date, I remember
saying trampoline park
but meaning my heart,
remember how you drove me
to my car on the same block,
before either of us knew
kissing would be the moon & the wind
making sense of the water
& you’re a water sign, before
I googled our astrological
compatibility, cancer & sagittarius
will almost never be
attracted to each other,
before we proved it wrong,
before our hands on each other
were the locks that cover
Pittsburgh’s bridges, the rain
making rust its own kind
of additional & ancient glue,
so maybe I loved you before
the first time we ever saw each other
at the tea bar, before I asked
if you live around here
then walked home alone,
before it was months before
I saw you again, before
you were the romantic lead
in what I thought was an ordinary
Saturday night, maybe even
before either of us grew up
& got to Pittsburgh, before hot dogs
with a ketchup-mustard double helix
were your favorite food,
before you learned to swim
in some Boston public pool,
before every time I reach for
your arms, the breath
held up in my chest,
suspension, of which,
finally, I do not resist.
your biceps twin bridges
I make a home beneath,
cloudless blue sky-
backed architecture,
what I reach for, makes me river,
how despite water
balloon soft hands
you’ve cracked me open,
eggs I won’t eat,
bright & running but buoyed
here & now & last night
& last month & technically
last year, too, which is to say
I think I loved you
long before you said the word
love can get diluted
as anything water can be
added to, loved you
before love’s possibility
blooming in the floral
tea I’ve forgotten the name of
though not the taste,
but I remember
the photo you showed me
of your brother in a suit
on our first date, I remember
saying trampoline park
but meaning my heart,
remember how you drove me
to my car on the same block,
before either of us knew
kissing would be the moon & the wind
making sense of the water
& you’re a water sign, before
I googled our astrological
compatibility, cancer & sagittarius
will almost never be
attracted to each other,
before we proved it wrong,
before our hands on each other
were the locks that cover
Pittsburgh’s bridges, the rain
making rust its own kind
of additional & ancient glue,
so maybe I loved you before
the first time we ever saw each other
at the tea bar, before I asked
if you live around here
then walked home alone,
before it was months before
I saw you again, before
you were the romantic lead
in what I thought was an ordinary
Saturday night, maybe even
before either of us grew up
& got to Pittsburgh, before hot dogs
with a ketchup-mustard double helix
were your favorite food,
before you learned to swim
in some Boston public pool,
before every time I reach for
your arms, the breath
held up in my chest,
suspension, of which,
finally, I do not resist.
Lisa Summe is the author of Say It Hurts (YesYes Books, 2021). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Bat City Review, Foglifter, Muzzle, Salt Hill, Underblong, West Branch, and elsewhere. You can find her running, playing baseball, or eating vegan pastries in Pittsburgh, PA, and at lisasumme.com.