Love Poem

You are buried in my pillow of fever
And burn heavily in my eyeballs. Your odour
Pervades my bed, and will not be laid.

Though you offer me an orphan future
Which I leave untouched on an unknown doorstep
Medicine is the touch of your lip.

If you called as you do call from the bottom of the sea
I would hear you in my grave easily
I would step down to join you happily.

Brushing the lies aside I shall leave my bed
I shall find you under the Rumanian dead
Under the wreck, still arched for attack.

(from Poems, 1938-1948)

Back to Elizabeth Smart.

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ArtemisWorks 1997