There’s poetry in this business of love,
in the slow dancing fall into bed,
when, after all our false attempts,
the earnest lines we’ve heard and said,
two clumsy, tumbling, unlike things
are finally, briefly one.

There’s no need then to say that this
is the cause and worth of everything;
we can stop trying to get it right.
The room we’re in is all we know
and all we’ll ever need to know,
the finished verses, the kiss goodnight.

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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 21 Number 4, on page 48
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https://newcriterion.com/issues/2002/12/love-song