Thirty Six

It’s nice sometimes
to open up the heart a little
and let some hurt come in.
It proves you’re still alive.
If nothing else
it says to you–
clear as a high hill air,
uncomfortable
as diving through cold water–

I’m here.
However wretchedly I feel,
I feel.

I’m not sure
why we cannot shake
the old loves
from our minds.
It must be that
we build on memory
and make them more
than what they were.
And is the manufacture
just a safe device
for closing up the wall?

I do remember.
the only fuzzy circumstance
is sometimes where and how.
Why, I know.
It happens
just because we need
to want and to be
wanted, too,
when love is here or gone
to lie down in the darkness
and listen to the warm.

—Rod McKuen