Nobody Believes Poem by Erica Jong

Nobody believes in love-
not even me.

Love is the thing
you wait
to end.

Love is the thing
that will not,
cannot work.

Love is the thing
they warn you of-
the dire parents,
the friends
with their dead
marriages,
their crushed hopes.

Nothing crushes hope
but the will to make
the heart
like rock.

That will is strong.

The rock-heart stands
when the love songs crumble,
their yellowing sheet music
kept in a drawer,
their sweet hugs & tugs
forgotten,
like the merest air
of an old New England
spring.

Spring comes again
& again,
& the rock-hearts
feel the sap rising
thinking it is sex,
thinking the glands alone
cause this tumult
to the innards,
this hidden spring,
this secret river
which is hope.

Let them put it down
to sex!

Let them say
we worship Dionysus,
Bacchus, Pan,
but not the proper
gods.

Let them have
the proper gods-
Jahweh
with his heart like rock,
Christ with his blood
& thorns,
Mammon with his stock certificates,
his rates, his rates,
his bull markets,
& his late rallies.

We are rallying
alone.
We spit our love
into the wind.

Nobody can bear
to watch
our love.

Except the muse
who smiles
& sends

these
poems.