Love-Torn Poem by Gabrielle Martin

Do you believe in love?

What artist
does not
tip her water colors
or dip her quill
for it?

When my poem count
(stacked one
atop the other)
toppled at a thousand,
it was love
that hurled the final
stone-
staggered with ice picks
to the summit of
my love-torn language.

We sopped up the
spilled paint and mopped
the tears we shed
in our manuscript of loving
one another,
ourselves,
our unwritten and written
poetry.
We ascended the avalanche,
frost-bitten hands
and scattered pens-
plunged the flag of emotion
bearing your coat of arms
into the arctic Earth.

Of course I believe in love;
the winter winds whipped me
and taught me so.