You Asked Me, Who Do I Love The Most?

I love so many people,
My parents, my lover, my friends.
Could I quantify it?
Could I rank it?

What does it even mean,
To love one, more than another?
And what a terrible slight,
To love one less than another.

How would I know?
Why would you ask?
How could it ever
Come to that?

It’s an old joke: a man’s
Wife and his mistress are drowning.
He can only save one,
So which does he save?

The wife, of course,
Because the mistress will understand.
Mistresses everywhere take heed,
You know where you stand.

Who, then, would I save first,
On a boat,
From a fire,
In a time of war?

When the twin towers burned,
I knew instantly this was no accident.
We were under attack,
We, my country, my family.

I called my sister.
Don’t take the bridge to San Francisco today.
We are at war, and I need you safe.
You are my sister.