They chose the countryside
to make their tangled beds,
the lissome girl beneath,
the tousled boy astride.
We’d see them after dark,
her hair of palest oak
espalliered in the grass,
in meadow, field and park.
Until gray-fingered days
brought righteous wind and rain,
no patch of ground was spared
their amorous forays.
Her hair has gone to snow
from shades of palest oak.
For years a vital man,
arthritis brought him low.
Too old for escapades,
they rarely venture out.
How strange that they’d suggest
this latter love is best.
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