Why Do You Hate Me?

John Newlove
From:   Apology for Absence: Selected Poems 1962-1992. Erin, Ontario: Porcupine's Quill, 1993. p.145.

So you live of the sea;
and I am the dry acrid land.

You have the sweet fish swimming
and dull mannerly grain grows in me.

Your blood shines in curving darts;
I grow in calculated rows.

So I say I love you,
and you say, Why do you hate me?

I speak in a foreign language.
You don't know what I say.

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John Newlove's works copyright © to the Estate of John Newlove.