In Love, His Grammar Grew

In love, his grammar grew

rich with intensifiers, and adverbs fell

madly from the sky like pheasants

for the peasantry, and he, as sated

as they were, lolled under shade trees

until roused by moonlight

and the beautiful fraternal twins

and and but. Oh that was when

he knew he couldn’t resist

a conjunction of any kind.

One said accumulate, the other

was a doubter who loved the wind

and the mind that cleans up after it.

                                           For love

he wanted to break all the rules,

light a candle behind a sentence

named Sheila, always running on

and wishing to be stopped

by the hard button of a period.

Sometimes, in desperation, he’d look

toward a mannequin or a window dresser

with a penchant for parsing.

But mostly he wanted you, Sheila,

and the adjectives that could precede

and change you: bluesy, fly-by-night,

queen of all that is and might be.