Valentine’s Poem

Valentine’s Poem

In honour of Valentine’s Day, here’s a poem of my own – written a few years ago, for my husband.

A Long Time Later

(Around 3500BC, the world’s oldest extant love poem was inscribed in cuneiform on a clay tablet)

 

After thirty-two years

of consensual activities, it seems like

it’s all been said.  And done, in the centuries

and similes since the priestess wooed Shu-Sin. After all,

our love affair required no pomegranates, asps or abdications.

No stars were involved, except the ones

we ignored that first night

in the Botanical Gardens.

We did the usual –

made love in single beds, restaurant bathrooms,

a Combi van somewhere

on the Massif Central,

grew gardens and children:

more prose than poetry.

 

I might try, at the end of a day,

when the dogs hear your car and

rush to the door,

to reach for a figurative flourish,

for my own way of saying

You have captivated me

but, after all this time and distance

that we daily cross,

I have only

my own tired language

and your kiss.