Love Poem

The poet’s primary metaphor in “Love Poem” is a stream overflowing with winter melt.

The volume of the “creek / after thaw” (Lines 3-4) is high, and its movement fierce. Its banks are “dangerous” (Line 6), slipping into the current right beneath the feet of the poet and her beloved. It is also “our creek” (Line 3), the third person possessive, letting the reader know that this place, and this seasonal phenomenon, is familiar to the speaker and her beloved. Maybe it sits on their property, or runs close to their home. In any event, it is a part of the landscape they know and observe through the seasons. It is part of, and runs through, the landscape of their life together.

The creek runs high and fast after winter when the snow and ice melt. In this dramatic moment, it pulls everything that touches it into the current. The speaker describes a realistic image of rushing water full of “every twig / every dry leaf and branch” (Lines 8-9) in its flow. And then, suddenly, the creek carries away “every scruple” (Line 11). Scruples do not grow by creeks. A scruple is a moral or ethical consideration that fosters restraint.