Unrequited Love

You say you can't find my love.
It's in the dirty dishwater, lying with all the silverware at the bottom of the sink.
My love hides in the filthy toilet bowl and in the mixed up recyclables that drive you crazy.
It's in the chaos of my kitchen drawers and beneath the cushions that forever fall off the couch.
My love broke off with the needle that now hides inside the soccer ball.
It's in the unemptied trash and at the bottom of the mending basket with the clothes that will never be sewn.
You can't hear my love beneath or over my kids yelling.
And that chair you can never sit in?...because it's always stacked with clean laundry--my love sits underneath.
My love strays all over the house with my endless strands of hair that seem magnetized to your clothes.
My love cries out with red tears that you cringe from in my menstrual blood.

January 1991