Ordinary Love by Michael Burch
Indescribable--our love--and still we say with eyes averted, turning out the light, "I love you," in the ordinary way
and tug the coverlet where once we lay, all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white ... indescribably in love. Or so we say.
Your hair’s blonde thicket now is tangle-gray; you turn your back; you murmur to the night, "I love you," in the ordinary way.
Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite a love so indescribable. We say
we’re older now, that "love" has had its day. But that which Love once countenanced, delight, still makes you indescribable. I say, "I love you," in the ordinary way.
Winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne poetry contest
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