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The Story
Sick in the craw,
on a prolonged binge
I wrestle naked-handed with love.
Like the wrack and maw
of weather, this was a seamy
ravishment, taking place
peu
a
peu.
You were the woman.
And when you said," Love is hard
to surrender; it is wrong to give
so much," I knew
it was all up with us.
You know the story:
Shylock and me?
We both had feelings
We both got cut.
The right wind brings tears
even to the biggest bastard's eye.
It's the dictatorship
of the visible effect:
Our washing (my white shirt,
your black slip) hangs
stiff in the yard,
while winter branches freeze,
yet still flex and sing.
Like mending thatch,
or rhyming rats to death,
bending and contrition are lost arts,
and songs no longer move maids.
Marriage has its own desolations.
I have plain intentions.
Yours were bold.
The shifting moon knows some
of this woe:
Hers is a history
of exquisi te classifications,
ours a story of divestment
that remains to be told.
