Borzutzky embraces the complexities of modern love and modern poetry, crafting a poem that is winding and bordering on confusing in its lack of continuity. The non-linear structure and absence of names forms a speaker who is absent except in love. The reader is left unable to parse out the characters, questioning which “she” is being described– are they all the same woman, or does each have her own distinct relationship to the speaker? The ambiguity and lack of linear timeline allows for an exploration of love in all of its forms. Love in relation to sexuality is separated between “gay teenage boys [who] want monogamy” and “heterosexual boys [who] prefer ‘friends with benefits'” (lines 9-12). Borzutzky also incorporates small moments of other types of love: familial love in “I love you, she said, as she smacked her child’s head” and platonic love in the friends who “meet in a café to discuss mutual funds and stock options” (lines 49, 58-59).
In his exploration of romantic love, Borzutzky investigates the dating norms of the modern world. In the anecdote of the date who “thought [he] was trying to stick her with the bill,” the gendered expectations of dating are challenged (lines 30-31). The subversion of this causes a discomfort between the two individuals, until the date realizes that he is “unaware of dating etiquette” and is “charmed” by his apparent inexperience (lines 32-33). Throughout the first section, the poem has been arranged in stanzas of two lines, each of which ends in enjambment, flowing seamlessly into the next stanza. While the reading may be seamless, the shape of the poem on the page is fragmented, reflecting the non-linear structure and the complex, broken depiction of love within the poem. However, at the point which the speaker breaks the unspoken dating norms, the shape of the poem suddenly changes from the abrupt stanzas into a quatrain. The second section does not follow a pattern of line numbers, but the stanzas are longer and contain a mix of enjambed and endstopped lines, providing a steadier understanding of love.
Tsui provides a contrast to the unsteady nature of love in Borzutzky’s poetry. Her poem is constructed from quatrains, liberally using punctuation but omitting capitalization throughout the entirety of the poem. Where Borzutzky embraces the confusing aspects of love, Tsui demonstrates a certainty in the nature of love, declaring “mother, i’m gay, mother i’m gay and so happy with her” (lines 29-30). The lack of capitalization and the spaces stretching between the stanzas mirror the relationship between the poet and her mother– there is an unreachable gap between them as her mother “will not listen” and “shakes her head,” denying the reality of her daughter’s love.
The conflict between familial love and romantic love is a heavy presence within the poem. Tsui challenges the non-recognition of her romantic relationship as legitimate through the use of the quatrains. Where “the vast majority of Tsui’s other poems follow a free-verse format,” here she conforms her love into the traditional poetic standards (American Women’s Poetry 99). Through this, she demands her relationship be acknowledged as “social convention,” refusing to accept that her love is “not invited” into her family since she is “neither [her] husband nor [her] wife” (line 44, American Women’s Poetry 99). While the majority of the poem handles this conflict, the final three lines diverge in subject matter, describing her “[dreams] of dragons and water” and her home as “in her arms, [their] bedroom ceiling the wide open sky” (lines 50-52). This description takes their relationship as a love that is quietly intimate and opens it to the world, defying the norms which demand their silence.
