Unplanned
a love poem
Unplanned “Cut once after you measure twice.” That’s how good carpenters work but, in love, we aren’t that precise. No matter how hard that we try to be exact, we go feral with thirst. “Cut once after you measure twice” is a common rule but who has time to survey the whisper and flirt? Lust, like love, is never precise. Think about those improvised nights when we hurried to unbutton our shirts— when “cut once and measure twice” was the bit of woodworking advice that went unread, unfelt, and unheard. Maybe there’s safety in the precise but we so often ignore good advice because we want that sweet untamed hurt. Maybe the wise cut once and measure twice but we holy fools beg for love that’s imprecise.
Love this, thank you Sherman. Measure twice and cut once was one of my Father’s favorite sayings, but there was no hesitation in his love for us. Another of his favorite sayings was If all else fails, read the instructions. Probably doesn’t fit in this poem but I’ve always remembered it.
Marvelous, Sherman. I love the way you have echoed a late-17th century playwright.
In *The Old Batchelour*, William Congreve wrote, "Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure: // Married in haste, we may repent at leisure."
Many have protested, "But I was in love with her," when perhaps "in lust with her" would have been more accurate. [Ask me no questions, and I'll not bore you with autobiographical laments!]