(for Melanie)
Those who say that marriage is safe, they ought to marry you:
So many years of roses’ thorns, and still no getting through.
I hurt you more than any can when seeming not to love
The heart for whom I live and die; believe me, love, I do.
I talk as if I know the score, can sing the words, but still
I love you far too much for me, not near enough for you.
I flirted with your daring once, and called your beauty mine,
Unwarned then of a charge so high, so wild, so overdue.
It takes too long to cleave together, marry all to one,
But if I kiss-you-quick goodbye, I cleave myself in two.
Since love is war, a heart attack, between the good and bad,
I’d offer to surrender: but I’m fighting me not you.
O head and heart if you should wed, don’t boast your Crown of Thorns:
The Rose’ll think you’re ready - that’ll be the end of you.
*
Not ours, my love, the teen-dream green-screen songs
And films n’ soaps n’ mills n' boons n’ ads
Of 'hunters' living with their mums and dads,
The twenty-something dramas, dinging-dongs,
The sizzling catalogues of straps and thongs,
The Darcys, Juliets and golden lads
In modern strip from tales in which the cads
Are fifty-odd like us and cause all wrongs.
Our story didn't end like these above
In frozen celebrations, wedding dress;
We raised a daughter into Phase and Next,
We're grownups grown together, more or less,
Our romance is a realistic text:
A dangerous, married, grail-quest of true love.
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