For Lorraine
The pain of love is terrible.
Coasters slip in unseen
before the hoot of dawn.
They weigh against the knuckled piers,
oily water lisps at their sides,
and seagulls eat the cake.
The pain of love bites like an early squall.
The pleasure of love is terrible.
We untie the world.
Bookham, Egham and Dorking fields -
they are listed with Barbary.
Poppies snag the nearest corn,
the rooks wheel down.
The pleasure of love bites like harvest mice.
The pain of love is terrible.
Why should he die and be lost to my touch?
Only in agony now do I watch him.
Only the deathless tie
linking us between the eyes.
Only that heart which cannot stop -
nor can ever be made to.
The pain of love bites like a benison.
Peter Campbell
