Holly Karapetkova

The First War Was for Love

As if there weren’t enough to go around.
As if your mother locked you in your room 
the first three years of your life and boom: 
all the neurons got crossed. As if your wounds 
armed themselves with plastic spears and swords
and went marching off to Jerusalem,
Antioch, Constantinople, a column
of crossbows aimed at someone else’s god

only to return god-smacked, diseased, 
and awakened to love as idolatry--
coming to my rescue, mounting your steed
to save what never wanted saving,
your army of toy knights falling at my feet,
all the battlements rising in your head.

Holly Karapetkova is Poet Laureate Emerita of Arlington, Virginia, and recipient of a 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She’s the author of two award-winning books, Towline from Cloudbank Books and Words We Might One Day Say from Washington Writers Publishing House.