Widespread Love

Those lovers who love love are killers of

It often, often as Black Widows eat

The eagerness and guts of males who love

Them, giving up their sperm and lives, complete

The sacrifice to love and life.  Love such

As this is like Medea’s, loving killed

For sake of love.  When love becomes too much,

A man will murder.  Children’s lives are spilled

And then he slaughters wife and mother—then

Himself.  The bedrooms, yes, the bed will soak

Up blood.  Such love will have its glut in men.

This kind of hate is what some loves provoke.

  The blood and brains bespattered on those walls

    Give us the truth about love’s widest halls.

~ Phillip Whidden