She and I sat down the other night.
Not quite candle-light, but soft and low,
You know the sort of thing, a decent wine,
Something, I think, along the lines of a Niersteiner,
The scythe of the moon considerately counterpointing
The place’s understated crescent decor
Much remarked upon by recent reviewers.
There were some bores with rather more money than work.

Our entrée and your entry came together,
Though whether this was coincidence I doubt,
  The waiters unveiling the dish with their muted flourish,
And you just behind in that bloody silver see-through,
Yes, and remaining there till you saw me pale,
Till you sensed me cold as a naked fish.
Don’t deny it, you were as certainly there
As the coat I would later retrieve from the cloakroom attendant.

“I thought it had stopped,” she said, “I thought it had stopped” –
An echo from the night I’d used your name
While seeming to be addressing her in my sleep;
A shadow of these sightings of the swan
That moves across the surface of the lake
In the evening, the girl who moves through the fair
In the field or wherever and comes reclaiming back
To declare it will not be long till the wedding day.

How long till these occupations are gone?
How long till you lift the siege that has me
In your arms and mouth when they are not yours?
How long till you turn and are finally done
And back in the history to which we both belong?
Both belong like dropsy or the ague,
Infant-death on industrial city scales.
How long will you plague us from our peace?


The walls and even the expensively marbled hallway
All were folded away like a cardboard set.
The mist was ripped to rags on the rocky outcrops.
The summer swore it would come, and there was the swan
That moves across the surface of the lake
In the evening, the girl who moves through the fair
In the field or wherever and comes reclaiming back
To declare it will not be long till the wedding day.