Almost in the Quicksand

by Frank Amjentan

I could not love you,
a woman whose love
issued from her clothing
like the fetor of dirty socks,
a love
learned from another man
whose love was silk
and hung on every clothesline,
a man whose heart
was hiding in the paperbacks
under his bed,
no, I could not love
you whose love
beckoned like quicksand,
I might have been
too far under
when I realized
he still had his hands on you