“What is done with love is done well.”
Vincent Van Gogh said it,
So I suppose,
Given the unspoken obvious,
I should find solace in such words.
And I do,
For a moment, until they turn over a fifth time in my skull
And begin to take on a kind of up speak,
A question inherent in tone:
Done well?
Done well?
With love is done well?
Don’t ask me— ask the last person forced,
By circumstance or attraction,
To take in my words,
Music,
Personage,
All or one or two of the above;
Ask them:
Was this done well?
It was done with love, but was it done well?
I believe I do good but I’d like to do well
And when I do it is an obscene kind of pleasure
Which comes with a certain risk of hubris and shouting and inadvertent injury
But also with melancholy and saccharine sentiment.
This is how I know that in certain moments of my life I have lived in accordance with
Vincent’s counsel;
Those inane missions of homemade espresso and massage,
Of kisses imbued with death or sex or light
Those words which I coax with painstaking specificity from the tiniest crevasses of my shoulders
And stomach and breasts and feet
Those performances where every breath is wholly physically tangible;
Each syllable a golden invincible string of fettuccine or linguine
Pulled taut from pubis to crown
Disparate seconds across decades which I manage to archive intact—
Last parties, first kisses, best ballet classes, certain specific rainstorms,
First instances of eye contact with those people most unexpectedly pertinent
To the unfolding of this languid livid life-plot
And this hunched, haggard, horrifically happy hour
Marked by the thing I love most:
Writing you down.
In this pursuit, if none other,
I find it fit to say:
What I have done in love
I have done well.
- Amia Korman
