Camera Lenses And Filters

The Responsibility of Love
by G. E. Patterson

Where you are now, the only lights are stars
and oil lamps flaring on vine-covered porches.
Where you are now, it must be midnight.
No one has bothered to name all the roads
that overlook the sea. The freshened air
smells of myrtle and white jasmine. A church
stands on the headland, and I hope it might
keep one thought of me alive in your head.

Autumn is here: warm days becoming cold.
The trees drop more leaves, love, each time it rains.
I eat my meals with the TV turned on,
but softly so the neighbors won’t complain.
The kilim is stained by the food I spilled
the first day--and the second--you were gone.