Boundless Love

This belongs to Claire Brooks.

My tattoo is an excerpt from a line in Frank O’Hara’s poem “Meditations in an Emergency,” the first part of which goes as follows:

Am I to become profligate as if I were a blonde? Or religious as if I were French?

Each time my heart is broken it makes me feel more adventurous (and how the same names keep recurring on that interminable list!), but one of these days there’ll be nothing left with which to venture forth.

Why should I share you? Why don’t you get rid of someone else for a change?

I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.

Even trees understand me! Good heavens, I lie under them, too, don’t I? I’m just like a pile of leaves.

Frank O’Hara is my favorite poet, and the line “All I want is boundless love” became an inside joke between my partner and I when we were courting. I recommend ALL his poetry, but this poem and “Mayakovsky” are by far my favorites. I love having Frank’s words where I can see them at any time.