If Lovers We
IF LOVERS WE
(To Julia)
`` If lovers we, you and I, who would we be?
W0uld we be William Powell and Myrna Loy,
sophisticates, trading alcoholic quips across the dining room?
Would we be Abelard and Heloise,
lovers doomed, she to a nunnery, and he,
his castrati voice intoning high prayers through the fog
of winter afternoons
Would we be Tom and Valerie Elliott
plunging into a cold madness?
Would we be Bonnie and Clyde,
outlaw lovers, running down country roads
to meet violent death?
Would we be Buster Keaton and the heroine,
he taking a pratfall towards her heart?
Or an average couple, maybe, growing old before the fire,
watching the last dying coals go out?
No, I would be your Robert Browning
and you would be my ‘Lizbeth Barrett--:
you are my poetry, the rhythm and metre of my soul,
you are my painting, the portrait in my mind,
you are my music, my perfect pitch.
It is through you I speak.
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