4:51 pm | 26 June 2003 | heart's a drunk driver

Here's a lameduck love poem for drunks (for Baharehbat's "What's a Heart?" project). And tomorrow morning, boyohboy are you guys gonna be happy. A special guest spot is comin' yo way. love you. clm.

My heart is a drunk driver
�����testing the limits of the road:
�����My heart is driving with one eye squeezed shut
�����between yellow lines of endless waver.

My heart is an accordion with a busted bellows.
�����Look: it�s a wheezy heart.
�����It�s an asthmatic song.

My heart is a compass at the North Pole:
�����Here�s a heart
�����spinning and spinning.
�����Here�s a ceaselessly dizzy heart. Here�s a heart
�����that�s gotten to where it has pointed all along.

My heart is a stroke victim that knows what it wants to say
but says the wrong thing always.
�����"Loaf!" it blurts.
�����Love, it meant to say.

My heart is chock-full of malfunction.
My heart is doing its best.

I am careless.
�����Here�s a heart with �return to�� taped to its underside.
�����Here�s a heart that�s been left in too many taxis.

Don�t give your heart to anyone.
Treat it like a jar:
�����Yours is full of Pacific waters
�����& mine is mostly Lake Michigan
�����with a tablespoon of Loch Ness
�����and a quarter-cup of the Black Sea:

So share or trade half of your waters with me
�����& love is a chemical change & a mystery
�����we could end up with a bluegreen love
�����or a saline love
�����or a mostly freshwater love
�����held in our own jars.

A bad love is shaken
& a good love is stirred
And it only takes one glass
�����To get to where we�re going:

So a toast to a love that�s doing its best
�����& a toast to a love we sip out of jars
�����& a toast to a love that turns water into wine
�����and my heart into a drunk driver