City by Robert Beveridge

“A city, according to St. Augustine, is a group of people joined together by their love of the same object. Ultimately, however, there can be only two objects of human love: God or the self. All other loves are masks for these. It follows that there are only two cities: the City of God, where all love Him to the exclusion of the self, and the City of Man, where self-interest makes every sinner an enemy to every other.” –John Freccero, in his foreword to Dante’s Inferno

It happened
on the day you touched my hair,
smoothed back the loose piece
over my ear.
Your touch like an ocean
of silk pulled me in, the tide
drew me out to drift
in fantasies of your essence,
the scent of your hair, taste
of your throat that lingered
inside me.

I see nothing of me
in you; this cannot be
self-love.

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Robert Beveridge makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry just outside Cleveland, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in CircleShow, The Literateur, and Vanilla Sex, among others.