Funny how we forget that
amid our flurry of cursing.
But of course we swear
for love, too, at the altar,
in bars, among the willows,
in the blown desert.
The jihadists all suffer
from lack of love.
If only they could loosen
up and swear more,
God lurking in the warm
face of the beloved.
Maybe this kinship
between intimacy
and the forbidden begins
with a quartet of letters
that speak together
in tight harmony,
inseparable in their deep
music that rips open
the laws of language.
