70 Favorite Poems: 43. What a Thing is Made Of by Isabelita O. Reyes

[Issy Reyes was my Creative Writing 10 professor in college, and that class was one of the best classes I attended. I bought her books out of curiosity and was not really surprised when i found out that not only was she a good professor, she was an excellent writer as well. This is actually three separate poems with the same title from her poetry collection "In Transitives."] 

Early evening. Cars slide pearls along

the underbelly of train cables, the jet black,

simultaneous light and liquid, hypnotic

comfort in a city of sudden starts,

momentary rushes. Now you have time:

calibrate your emotions.

          If you could’ve seen the space

Between form and the formless, like the trip

From lovers to sheer love, the unadulterated

Freedom of that, the affection without affect

Of that. It’s the hidden ever after wish to live

a B movie—the one you wouldn’t see.

          But the question caught in your throat

this morning, the one you nearly gagged on

when she opened that door, “What is it?,”

didn’t have to be so hard. She answered

even when you didn’t ask, “Love is really what

you do,” and you heard the pin-tumblers clicking.

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