Leslie McGrath-l

Marriage as Water

 

 

There’s a woman to whom caress feels like fire

and fire caress.

 

Father-love made her a stranger in her own romance.

 

Each refusal of her husband thrusts him

farther from her.

 

Draw near, dearheart, says she

but do not enter me.

 

If marriage were mirror

she’d be mercury’s deft blemishes

doubly refracted

 

but marriage is water

deepgathered and deepening.

 

Suspended for years in a pool of devotion

 

love works its way free of grief.