...Loveland...

I have been to Loveland. 

I’ve been to Loveland, Iowa, 

but I honestly felt nothing 

   while I was there. 

Most certainly I did not 

   feel loved. 

What had I hoped for? 

If not love, 

what emotion prevailed? 

 

Inside the city limits of Loveland, Iowa, 

you expect absolute strangers 

to walk up and hug you, 

yet this has never once happened. 

When I pay for my groceries, 

I wait for the cashier to 

caress my outstretched hand, 

place it to her billowing breast, 

and give me one of those French 

   cheek to cheek kisses. 

Instead she gives me change. 

 

I stealthily walk up to assorted homes, 

and look through frilly lace windows 

to see if couples are copulating inside.

But no.  

No. 

Where is the love people? 

Where is the love?

 

So what exactly is going on in Loveland, Iowa? 

How could there not be a wedding chapel?

As well as no maternity shop? 

And for gosh sakes, 

where’s all the sex-toy 

and lingerie boutiques?  

No love. No love. No love. 

 

I sit in the back row of 

their one lone movie theatre 

and express love enough for 

all the town’s inhabitants. 

In return they send the town sheriff, 

who handcuffs and takes me to jail. 

 

No. I feel no love in Loveland, 

   but rather hate. 

No compassion, but disgust. 

 

The only person in Loveland 

who expresses any 

affection towards me 

whatsoever 

is my new cellmate, 

and he loves me way, 

   way, 

way too much. 

 

Ó03 Jack David Hubbell