On Married Love
by Jeffrey Burghauser (June 2019)
Wedded, Frederic Leighton, 1882
for M.C.L.
On the Gulf of Aqaba’s
Swelter-fastened southern flange,
Twisted all my mind until
I was someone seeing Saint
Valentine’s Day solemnized
At the gold Sheldonian.
I remember ivory
Men in tailored formalwear
Passing through those burnished doors
Nameless with their weightless dates—
Nameless nymphen nonchalant,
Dripping silk from their physiques.
Each admitted in her hand
A specific, long-stemmed rose.
*
Fancy easily supplies
Pseudo-substance of this sort.
No one can anatomize,
Blush-with-pigment, and report
Real Arcadia as well
As they can a throbbing Hell.
Thank you for the quiet We—
The unmappably exact,
Adjective-repellent fact
That instantiates no less
Than a human happiness.
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Real Poems, is available on Amazon and his website is www.jeffreyburghauser.com.
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