What Is Love

What Is Love by Edmund Siejka My parents argued frequently So love was an elusive something Usually found in someone’s else’s home In high school A little more sure of myself I dated my first girlfriend In the go- go decade of the sixties When Kennedy was President And the race to the space Was on In working class neighborhoods Sex was a taboo subject Ours was a puppy love Holding hands Making out Heavy petting Gail was intimidated by the city Rarely ever leaving her Queens neighborhood I, more adventurous Worked in Manhattan as a messenger My simplistic view of life Was Midtown was Midtown Above was Uptown And somewhere near the misty Harbor Hedged in a hodge podge of narrow streets Was Downtown Oh yes, there was another simplistic truism Don’t knock up your sixteen year old girlfriend Eventually when we split She cried And behind her back I choked on my tears. Going to college under the GI Bill I lived in the East Village One night a couple introduced me to their friend At a place that later became CGBG’s She was quiet and ignored me After our second meeting She asked me to go with her to another place Seated in a booth Drinks on the table I felt eyes on me Especially from the tall well dressed waitress Whose arrival was announced by the fragrance Of sex scented musk. It turned out my quiet date Was a poet/artist Some years older She knew everyone in the art world She drank a lot But I was not known to pass up a drink Sex, a necessity Was often expected She gave me advice Introduced me to artists But despite the casualness of the people The first names And pretty smiles I soon realized that the art world Was a world within a world Of dog eat dog Lost, she needed to find herself And I was just too young to take on the added burdens of stepchildren, House and home. Judy was a no nonsense woman Who went through the motions of sex Our mornings were awkward with not a word being said She didn’t drink Which in my jumbled way of thinking Was odd I could never talk to her It was then that I began to doubt that Sex and the bar scene was the way to go Some weekends I just stayed home Or drank with my buddies. Our conversations inevitably coming to What was a good relationship And what did we want to accomplish Once we hit thirty. I met Elaine It was the ease of how we met No pressure No lies It just happened But what was the key to our relationship? Sex Good movies Holding hands Being together Or was it that I finally grew up Ready to accept responsibility. I trusted her I listened to her She was on my side Maybe that’s what love is? Whatever defines love It’s something the great philosophers can’t explain A compound of many things Mixed up in some crazy laboratory Stronger than any emotion Ever known That binds one person to another And allows two people to live as equals.