This poem is taken from PN Review 244, Volume 45 Number 2, November - December 2018.
Two Poems
Epithalamium
A Postscript for A.
He’s in love with being in love
but how much love is left to give
at 78? She’s 46,
Romanian, and here to live:
he’s signed to her his full devotion
and terraced house. Now he sits
alone all day in a tiny room
he used to only sleep in. It’s
a refuge. She sleeps where his office was
on a single mattress he acquired
then busies herself: this kitchen needs
stripping, then the yard. She’s tired.
She fends off calls: ‘No here, he sleepink’
she says a few times every day,
to grainy voices down the phone
who’d called to chat chess, poetry
...
A Postscript for A.
He’s in love with being in love
but how much love is left to give
at 78? She’s 46,
Romanian, and here to live:
he’s signed to her his full devotion
and terraced house. Now he sits
alone all day in a tiny room
he used to only sleep in. It’s
a refuge. She sleeps where his office was
on a single mattress he acquired
then busies herself: this kitchen needs
stripping, then the yard. She’s tired.
She fends off calls: ‘No here, he sleepink’
she says a few times every day,
to grainy voices down the phone
who’d called to chat chess, poetry
...
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