The Rut Poem by Michael Burch

How fickle love was once! (We think—"Not now! "—
because the sun is fading to the west
and we've grown older, wiser.)Yet, somehow,
the sun will rise and we've a human breast.
But somehow love is fickle, in that we
don't really know quite what we mean by it.
It can't be bought, and yet it isn't free.
It wanders off the more we calmly sit
and don't pursue it wildly, like the stag
who crashes through green forests, sick with lust,
who hones his antlers sharply, whose points brag
he'd rather die than not roll in the dust
to recreate himself: his poetry
is lustful yes, but lusty, hard-won, free.

Published by The Raintown Review and Neovictorian/Cochlea