Curious George Loves the Man with the Yellow Hat

But is this really love, or because the man looks
like a banana? The way I would find my beige
Camry covered with iridescent champagne
 
dragonflies every spring. The same way I fell
for a cowboy with a Johnny Cash voice
and a black hat. Or an Indian straight out
 
of an in-love-with-a-white-teacher Harlequin
plot. Instead of laying me on deerskins in front
of a fire, there were Pendleton blankets chorused
 
by radiator clicks and clangs. How much of love
is love? How much the geometry of jawline
and hip ratio, search for the golden spiral?
 
An imagined instance of lullaby from milk-
sleep and breast-cradle? How much the softness
of skin against skin? In my mind I know
 
I shouldn’t love you, but it’s my heart
that always wins.
 
 
 

Shaindel Beers is the author of two full-length poetry collections, A Brief History of Time (2009) and The Children’s War and Other Poems (2013), both from Salt Publishing. She is currently the chairperson of the English Department at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton, Oregon, and serves as Poetry editor of Contrary Magazine. Learn more at http://shaindelbeers.com .