Why do lovers love better
in Paris? Isn’t every city
a city of love when you’re in love?

I’m not. In love.
Instead I’m in Springfield,
in wool socks (in June),
in a Monday, in a malaise,
in the bathroom, yuck,
because I ate dairy.
My petty ailments occupy 
too much space in my body
for it to be in love.

I refuse to wake up early
so anyone can watch my drool
glimmer in the early dawn light. No way.
I wake up early to confirm 
that by three a.m. 
all the couples
all across this love-struck city
have rolled away 
from each other in the 
catastrophe of sleep.
Their bodies are done 
being puzzle pieces,
are just being puzzles again,
as my body has always been.