It is not in the moments of beaded sweat,
of sundering, of sighs on the stairs,
of laughter in the bracken that love
is made, so much as

thoughts in absence, remembered pain,
a mutual fending of the giant's blows,
the way in which a pool of silence
is smoothed by interfolding respect, the carefulness
for something which is not self.

She is, elsewhere: that is my wealth.