My love is like a piece of broken glass, made
Smooth, and round and soft, from being caught
And tumbled in the river of my thoughts
Of you, and your perfection. The swirls abrade
Impurities of lust, all hope allayed.
If death our end, though tragic and unsought
My love would be an orb that I’d transport
Through noble, lonely life, all other love denied.
But no! You are not dead. You live, prosaically.
Somewhere you shop, commute; you watch TV.
Live long, my love, though by your life my love’s
Debased. Here, in the river’s darkening floods,
My love’s a stone around my heart, and pulls me down.
Thus I shall sink and, unprotesting, drown.
| Early days, and I thought I was simply experimenting with the sonnet form. But somehow these bare lines, and desolate feelings, found their way in. |
Steve Dowson 
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