Enduring Love

by Miranda Pearson

Fields after rain. Cobbled, set with silver coin,

shining hoof prints and chevron. River that dreams

itself road. I'm foolish for lovingly kissing you,

sorrow for all the people you've hurt, a virus spreading.

The train is cancelled—a body on the track.

A man shouts at me for wearing a mask.

I'm a posh girl so polite and forgiving,

nannying you, tripping over myself.

Why don't you fuck off and retire, sit by a river.

Watch the ducks bred to be shot by the rich,

their flights as if suiciding, their sudden hangings.

Dogs bark and bark. A branch bent across the path

like a Dubai arch. Your hands the bones

of your feet their long skeletons. You say

the purpose of life is to pass it on. Look down

into the well, a portal to the underworld where the

herd gallop, jump into where the deer live, and the fox.

Sex, I don't miss it, aside from when I see tufts of grass

growing in the mud, waving, and when the wind is

blasting in my head and the perfume of the wood

before we burn it, like human hair.

Your greedy mating above the flood line, a statue

from where my weakness stems. I read you.

The two ways of leaving, like tulips

shrivelling or mad opening. Let us be the second.