New Poetry by R.A. Allen

Looking Back on Love

It was the greatest of loves,
a nonpareil of loves,
you and her
way back then
in that foreign city,
with its too many lemon trees, 
where the locals sneered at you,
and you forgave them their envy.

You saw yourselves in each other's
gaze and loved your reflected selves—
entranced, enraptured, enthralled.
Yes, loving yourselves so long ago.
A love now buried behind your
more recent, empty-seeming loves,
which were not quite as empty
as that love of yourselves back then.


- R. A. Allen 2019

R. A. Allen's poetry has appeared in the New York Quarterly, RHINO Poetry, Glassworks, The Penn Review, The Hollins Critic, Rendez-Vous , and elsewhere. He has a Pushcart nomination for poetry and one Dzanc Books Best of the Web nomination for fiction. He lives in Memphis and was born on the same day the Donner Party resorted to cannibalism: December 26th. More at https://poets.nyq.org/poet/raallen