SAMIA RAHIMTOOLA

Love, I Loved You

Then a parade marched over

the frontier of my heart

Stamped down the prairie grass

with mercurial feet—

Lust used me up

like a mosquito coil

then one

by one lovers

swarmed for the feast

In the mud field   a storm had swept

Toppled signposts   bent the straight

spines of corn

This was a country twisted

in its black twine of rivers

A map with its one road torn out