Love Leaves No Choices.2006 Poem by Roy William Gotaas

Love leaves no choices.
When you rose on steps between two walls
And looked towards me,
It drove its fist hard up below my breast bone.
When I could start to breath again
And dared to take a second look,
The world had shifted.

You can’t argue with sunrise;
Pretend the light isn’t hitting you.
Everything changes when light strikes it.
My life changed then, in that one blink of an eye
When I recognised you.

I say love left me no choice!
In what part of that second when I saw your face
Could I have denied knowing you?
How can one spend forty years searching
And then deny finding?

I have argued against you, tried to ignore you.
I’ve told myself you don’t move me,
Even as I’ve trembled with wanting.
No matter what I say to my self,
Clever me with words,
I’ve only to look at your face
And I’m silenced by the truth.
Your perfection leaves me wordless.