This, from Bidart’s fantastic 2008 collection Watching the Spring Festival, which, like all of Bidart’s work, I cannot recommend highly enough.
Frank Bidart: Valentine
How those now dead used the word love bewildered
and disgusted the boy who resolved hewould not reassure the world he felt
love until he understood loveResolve that too soon crumbled when he found
within his chestsomething intolerable for which the word
because no other word was rightmust be love
must be loveLove craved and despised and necessary
the Great American Songbook said explained our fatemy bereft grandmother bereft
father bereft mother their wild regretHow those now dead used love to explain
wild regret
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