Lonnie Hicks (www.lonniehicks.com / Chicago Ill)

The scab where Cupid's arrow had entered
had barely healed, leaving just a wisp of a scar
evident there; but the inner pain remained.

The sounds of its shaft, its purple burning shaft
is still present
to my muffled memory
which flinches from its approaching sound
its whoosh, its dull thud
piercing a heart valve,
denying blood to my feverished brain
which sounded the alarm that love
seen by many as Cupids blessing
but for me it was an arrow emptying out
my life's blood
outside and down, plunging
drawn by gravity
falling onto the maroon carpeting
invisible almost
while all around me urged that I celebrate
but I knew too
that heart valves burst too in love's first
volley
and that Cupid
is too, a mixed blessing.

But how to remove an embedded shaft
without causing the wound to shed one's very life blood,
or is it best to leave it in place, count the bliss
and ignore the tremendous event
many saw as unvarnished and good?

Why must Cupid's arrow steal from me my identify
in favor of a new merging one?

Why must Cupid's arrow involve blood?
And who is to explain the scab and pain
the wound brings
when love leaves
that hollow,
now bleeding vacuum,
which grows a scab
sometimes leaves a scar
plastered over with
urgings of 'you must move on.'

It is not that love is bad. It is not.

It is that it is transforming and the transforming
sometimes leaves me without a me I had known all my life
and the new me is merged with another
if they leave
I wonder what then what will I be left with?

Who has not pondered this?

Life then is the road traveled
strewn with Cupid's discarded arrows
and pained souls marching.

Yet, If I hear yet again

the shaft's approach
that whooshing sound
that Cupid's arrow makes
I know, I once again
will bare my chest
and take its plunge full on
because that is how Love is Made.


I remind myself of all of this as I prepare for the date.