The lovers of music,
The lovers of the music of love songs
Playing over and over
On the radios

The lovers of poetry
Reciting their love poems
In front of their mirrors

The lovers of art in love
With the nudes in the paintings
Hanging in the boudoirs of the palaces in Paris,
The figures in the statues
Contorted into all those shapes

The lovers of love,
The arts of love,
The women and the men
In love with the shapes in their hands
And the flavors in their mouths,
Ginger and chocolate and vanilla flavors
Rolling off the tongue
In curliques

The lovers of servants,
The servants who go down on their hands and knees
And give up their souls,
Every inch of their bodies

And the lovers of taskmasters,
Those stern taskmasters
Who bind up love
In the darkness,
And teach it new tricks

The lovers behind closed doors, sitting alone in their rooms,
Loving themselves as nobody ever loved them before

And the moment when love seems to leave us,
Empty handed,
With nothing to say