by Greg Beatty
The quantity: breathtaking attraction.
Divided by reason and paranoia =
Nine elements to factor out.
Love Factor #1: the perfect ratio
of breast: waist: hip. Gone.
Love Factor #2: she's like
your mother, but not
creepy close. Gone.
Love Factor #3: cuter
than your ex. Gone.
Love factors 4-6:
likes baseball / shops
alone / gets Python, so much
that she can do the dead parrot skit.
Well. Gone. Gone. Gone.
7? Her mother ages
with ripening beauty. Gone.
Love Factor #8? She
learned about this process
and did not kill you.
When the factoring
is done, that trust, that
and love, remain.
The irreducible primes
of connubial bliss.