How something solid as this man beside
Me there dissolved to nothing more than smoke
Mixed in with shadows of a willow, oak,
And hulking bridge I’ll never understand.
We travelled there together and we lay
In stricken silence, poetry unmanned,
In dirty upper rooms.  I was his prey
Or he was mine.  We lay down like a lamb
And lion in their paradise, except
We both gnawed muscles of the heart in sham
Affection, as filthy secrets kept.
A foggy, night-time river won’t allow
Much light to help false lovers shirk their vow.