There

Well I still felt ‘the weight of the moon and the sun’
‘The worst that can happen is your pain and your joy’
After all, in the scheme of dreams am I not the little boy
With a rattle and England! England! Football shouts
Coming screaming with me on the shuttle bus
Revving up to meet you
That autumn morning you leapt out of bed?
Ironic that England didn’t count, least of all football
Just the spirit to lift which jingoism gives.

And some ways round our spiral
I brought you my despair
Suitcase, like a movie,
To say
THIS IS TESTAMENT TO ETERNAL LOVE’
And ‘Perhaps you’ve been unfair’
But ‘all is fair in love and war’
And as I sang once before
I could never figure where.

To loop misunderstanding is the denial of our lives
As men become husbands and grow to hate their wives
Your therapy was news
But look at me,
I ready said it
Unconditionally
New York, Vienna,
London, Brighton, we.
Where would you like to live that love wouldn’t have you?
No ‘it’s the situation’,
Not resolving it, no?

So tell me I asked, ‘ Are you in love with me?’
And you angry and angry above
My two years and one thousand miles
Spat over falafel
‘I am not in love with you’

And then we both knew
I could have closure and be done with suffering.

Conversation, explanation
Remuneration.
Love above all
And the struggle to get there
Teaches us everything we need ever know.


© 2003 Once and Future Poems