The bargain wine and complimented treats
were finished hours ago: the hotel’s gift
for our tenth anniversary. Now, as we shift
our bodies beneath borrowed cotton sheets,
could there be a better time to rehearse
the old arguments, those familiar friends?
Our fingers trace the scars, their beginnings and ends
then name the stories, ‘love’ and ‘hate’ and ‘worse.’
But here, things greater than ourselves surround
us—the river, the gorge, and a night sky
peopled with lights asking, ‘who are you?’ and ‘why?’
So we hold each other’s hands as the ground
beneath is carried off to sea and all is gone
and we think, ‘Roll On Columbia, Roll On.’
were finished hours ago: the hotel’s gift
for our tenth anniversary. Now, as we shift
our bodies beneath borrowed cotton sheets,
could there be a better time to rehearse
the old arguments, those familiar friends?
Our fingers trace the scars, their beginnings and ends
then name the stories, ‘love’ and ‘hate’ and ‘worse.’
But here, things greater than ourselves surround
us—the river, the gorge, and a night sky
peopled with lights asking, ‘who are you?’ and ‘why?’
So we hold each other’s hands as the ground
beneath is carried off to sea and all is gone
and we think, ‘Roll On Columbia, Roll On.’
Other love poems here on Moss Kingdom: Love is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Paper Hearts, Les Bijoux by Charles Baudelaire (translated by Jacques LeClercq), A Seduction: in Four Seasons, La Petite Mort: a breath of agony, Sonnet 28 from “14 Lines”, Elegy 20 To His Mistress Going to Bed by John Donne, Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae by Ernest Dowson, Roll On Columbia: a sonnet for our tenth anniversary.