Twenty-One Love Poems XVIII

XVIII

Rain on the West Side Highway,

red light at Riverside:the more I love the more I think

two people together is a miracle.

You’re telling the story of your life

for once, a tremor breaks the surface of your words.

The story of our lives becomes our lives.

Now you’re in fugue across what some I’m sure

Victorian poet called the salt estranging sea.

Those are the words that come to mind.

I feel estrangement, yes. As I’ve felt dawn

pushing towards daybreak. Something: a cleft of light—?

Close between grief and anger, a space opens

where I am Adrienne alone. And growing colder.

This is poem XVIII, from Adrienne Rich's Twenty-One Love Poems collection, written between 1974-1976.  These were originally published as a complete collection but were later re-published and included as part of another collection of works, written between 1974-1977, called The Dream Of A Common Language.

Twenty-One Love Poems and The Floating Poem, (un-numbered) can all be found here at oldpoetry.