for Charlotte

I don’t think I’ve ever told you
how much it moves me,
deeply, quietly
that you make the bed every day
so neatly, so if I pass
through the bedroom
anytime thereafter, there it is,
eloquent and civilized,
covers turned down,
pillows luxuriant.

*
Why is marital
so like martial?
We never fight—
discuss sometimes,
but never fight.
Mars must have blessed us
by misspelling.
I love to talk with you.

*

Sometimes
when I’m sitting there
letting thinking
have its own way,
such a child the mind is!

sometimes then you’ll
be translating on the laptop
on the sofa, on the latest
of all your books
and you’ll read out to me
a phrase especially pleasing
or especially puzzling
or both, we love chimeras,

and I will exult at this gift,
this exit visa from my thoughts
into the great world
of language and the other
and your voice, your voice.
                                                           31 July 2020