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Tristan, Prone and Isolde, Supine

Two Poems By DAN GROVER

Tristan, Prone

God, I love you, but you trouble me.
I’ve spent too long in twin beds,
we haven’t moved
in all our lives — my sinews
snapped, muscles atrophied, bones
calcified; there are stalactites
where your eyes used to be.
We were meant to be gone — all
the world away, to cross over
seas, over oceans. Our love ripples,
undulates across this world, folding
maps to leap along continents —
there is nothing for us here,
can’t you see? I’ve been locked
inside my own head, you in yours.
Let’s crack our knuckles, our necks
and step free.

Isolde, Supine

Light-blind and starving,
we can only run as far as our legs
won’t go — the sea. And where
will we go once we reach the sea?
Unlike the atom, the heart
can split and remain intact; we are our
own caesura, love, we are undone
by one another. There is no need
to unbraid. Plant your roots. I want
to grow along with you. Let our boughs
entwine. Rest our crowned canopies
together. All the world folding beneath
me could not set our love free.
Oh, can’t you see? By running we doom
ourselves. Stay a while and grow.
God! I love you, but you trouble me.

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