The Embrace

I write you poems you are too shallow to understand.

In the gray depths of Victoria Station, the soot, the noise,

you cried my name, and out of the dark crowd—those clots

of mere people—you flew, all light in your light blue

summer dress, all lightness and laughter in my arms,

all air, all daylight, all reason that a man exists.

How you enjoyed your power in those happy days!

Now age weighs us down; now you struggle free.

Go!  I have had enough of lightness, fantasies,

the dolls all shattered, daughters broken.  Your power fails,

and back you fly, you fade.  The station swallows you.

Take it all back, then.  Take the TV, take my name,

and let me sit, lost in this dirty gray crowd of thoughts,

writing you poems, too shallow to understand.

Richard Moore

© 1988; originally printed in The Hudson Review.  Reprinted by
permission of the author.