Language Valentine

If all that’s left to read
in your own language
is an amateur fragment
of a poem an address
to an unnamed lover
full of startling obscenities
and broken narratives
of cruelty and love-making
meant to remind us
of who we really are
of course you would
read it over and over
you would memorize it
you would write it down
on your skin if those were
the only words you had left
in your own language