An exotic vacation

POSTED IN contemporary poetry July 21, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An exotic vacation

No one to referee that game,
Poor fledglings, with their heads thrown back
And mastered hips joined to their shame,
Are lonely partners on the rack.

Who is that watchman of the night,
Stretched out, staring so vacantly
From his filled bed until the light
Of day permit activity?

And who lies breathing at his side,
In sleep a kind of ruffed grouse?
Is it the girl that neatly glides
About the duties of her house?

They married decent strangers; she
For images of his despair
Without her, for his good name; he
For guilt and the curling of her hair.

Yearly to interpose delight
They go upon their honeymoon
Again, where things are never quite
The same although they should be soon.

And a small cottage has sprung up
Near a favorite swimming cove;
Every summer they come up
To localize their straying love.

On starry nights after their meal
Old rituals of hand in hand
Begin and what they think they feel
Makes them lie upon cool sand.

So they tumble by that shore
Of the uncaring upland lake
As if it were not done before
And each moans for the other’s sake.

 

Henry Braun