Promptly 4 and 5

Love

Love

Shall I compare love to a string of plastic hearts,
to a symbol that means anything from lust
to martyred sacrifice upon a ritual conflagration,
a popular song composed in the fetid heat
of some darkened and dishevelled nightclub,
a bright young thing gamboling in spring
through fields of green and sunlit daisies,
a cherished secret hidden beneath the covers
of a bedsit flat high up in the towers of the city,
a drunken wedding feast lit with flashbulbs
and the shrieks of champagne sozzled mirth,
a superhero swooping to save from dragons
the striking siren of seventeen summers,
and daytime dream of dubious darling daughters?

No, I’ll turn to your familiar face and knowing look,
then smile in our completeness.


Line count: 16
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 27 2025
Prompt: Illustration of hearts hanging from the letters of the word love.