High Desert Love Languages

Piñon want to be in every poem,

reach into all the cracks the weather makes.

To lengthen in any direction we must break

something, we must suck the water

from dry places, like the bee, like the billionaire,

like me, fighting for a viable teaching salary

so I can retire, scoffing at aphorisms

of well-fed western gurus who say

poverty and wealth are states of mind.

I say, states of body passed on in human seed:

working class exhaustion, the learned

love language of poverty—craving

only things that are free. Only three

out of thirty students in this desert valley

raised their hands when asked if they feel

most loved when they receive gifts.

Gifts—reciprocation—make us uneasy.

Praise, another gift, empty in this empty place.

Give me touch. Give me time.

Give me a sink full of clean dishes.

I took the survey and laughed:

how many receptors I have grown,

tiny pores of hands for almost any kind

of love. I only joke that I am needy.