In Love A Pleasure

Morning and last night
Seems distant as the rain
That tapped the window
With a sinewy grace
Whose meters, like Yeats',
Drummed incessantly
As heartbeats of those
Catching breath whether
Through love or infirmity.

Now I find you swathed
In smiles in this constancy
Of thread that links evening
To morning, a woman given
To histories such as these
Whose charms' grandeur
Beckons thick as blood.

And I have known
Winter women such as you -
Bathsheeba, Lara, Tess,
Who fell on Hardy's
Sombre head as the rain
That fell last night disturbed
Us whose honesty
Did not reach further
Than the Chinese garden
Or the veranda below.

Two hours on and you're gone
And the last touch of my body
Is casual as good manners, carries
Its own confusions as these words
Form and the sun heats
And the night and all other nights,
Tempered like particular alloys,
Forget themselves and leave,

A closure of expectancies.

John Cornwall

If you have any comments on this poem, John Cornwall would be pleased to hear from you.