a love poem

by charles bukowski


all the women
all their kisses
the different ways they love and
talk and need.

their ears
they all have ears
and throats and dresses
and shoes and
automobiles
and ex-husbands.

mostly
the women are very
warm they remind me of
buttered toast with the butter
melted
in.

there is a look in the
eye: they have been
taken they have been
fooled. i don’t quite know what to do for
them.

i am
a fair cook a good
listener
but i never learned to dance – i was busy
then with larger things.

but i’ve enjoyed their different
beds
smoking cigarettes
staring at the ceilings.
i was neither vicious
nor unfair.
only a student.

i know they all have these
feet and barefoot they go across the floor as
i watch their bashful buttocks
in the dark. i know that they like me,
some even love me
but i love very few.

some give me orange and vitamin pills;
others talk very quietly of childhood
and fathers and landscapes; some are almost
crazy but none of them are without
meaning; some love well, others not so;
the best at sex are not always
the best in other ways; each has limits
as i have limits and we learn each other
quickly.

all the women
all the women all the bedrooms
the rugs the photos
the curtains, it’s something like a church
only at times there’s
laughter.

those ears those
arms those
elbows those eyes
looking, the fondness and the waiting
i have been held
have been held.