"How Dare Anyone Say I Don’t Know Love"
by Melissa Fite Johnson

because I never prayed to the ceiling and pushed
            because I never held a hybrid you-me


and named it                                        

           
            (Unconceived ghost                I can almost see dancing
                        barefoot in sprinkler mist


                        beautiful dream I’ve never wanted)

 
            People explain             my sad life to me
            People explain             dogs are not children


How dare anyone say I don’t know what I’m missing


            They don’t know what they’re missing  


our bed not quite an island
                                                our bed a peninsula                              
 

                        We slip into sleep        instead of making dinner
                        (We order in                We linger)


I don’t post this love               because not everyone has it
I don’t poem this love             private drawer            
                                                                      

                                                                        quiet corner
                      

            They don’t know what they’re missing
 

                                                            our matador hearts
                                                our greenhouse love

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Melissa Fite Johnson is the author of three full-length collections, most recently Midlife Abecedarian (Riot in Your Throat, 2024). Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Pleiades, HAD, Whale Road Review, SWWIM, and elsewhere. Melissa teaches high school English in Lawrence, KS, where she and her husband live with their dogs.

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