How to Clean

This is my work:

making love visible.

If released into a

ravenous beast’s

littered lair

I would rest

it’s wound

in my lap.

That takes 

experience.

If I could devise

my own desire, it would be 

to exist without coveting.

It takes

muscularity of both 

mind and body

to polish

such 

sentimental bones.

I am a caretaker

for the un-cared for.

Making order

out of chaos

is how my heart

expresses 

it’s intelligence.

Others collect artifacts

that gather like

thoughts over time.

But I am no jumble.

My heart has no

need for artifacts,

rather a

fortitude that restores

this world.

That is what try to do:

Go on loving the things

that are desirable

only until they are owned.

My care

can make them

 new again.

Peter Valentyne

January 2018