Love, Like Water

Tumbling from some far-flung cloud

into your bathroom alone, to sleeve

a toe, five toes, a metatarsal arch,

it does its best to feign indifference

to the body, but will go on creeping

up to the neck till it's reading the skin 

like braille, though you're certain it sees

under the surface of things and knows 

the routes your nerves take as they branch

from the mind, which lately has been curling

in on itself like the spine of a dog

as its circles a patch of ground to sleep.

Now through the dappled window,

propped open slightly for the heat,

a light rain is composing

the lake it falls into, the way a lover's hand

composes the body it touches - Love,

like water! How it gives and gives,

wearing the deapest of grooves in our sides

and filling them up again, ever so gently

wounding us, making us whole.

Julia Copus

Hymn to All the Men I'll Never Love

My heart, sing praises to the men

I'll never love; from whom a night

away's just that — a night — and not

a lifetime in the desert without food

and water. It's because of them

that breakfasts can be eaten, Lord, appointments 

kept, and letters left to lie 

where they have fallen; men with whom

a perfect evening may be nothing more

than beer and cards outside beneath the lean-to

where straight-talk and easy gestures leave

dark nests of sparrows and the scent

of bonfires in their wake; the sort of men

whose smiles I can endure without

surrendering my all to them;

in whose unswerving disregard,

let heaven rejoice, let the earth be glad.

                                                                           Julia Copus

In Defence of Adultery

We don't fall in love: it rises through us

the way that certain music does -

whether a symphony or ballad -

and it is sepia-coloured,

like spilt tea that inches up

the tiny tube-like gaps inside

a cube of sugar lying by a cup.

Yes, love's like that: just when we least

needed or expected it

a part of us dips into it

by chance or mishap and it seeps

through our capillaries, it clings

inside the chambers of the heart.

We're victims, we say: mere vessels,

drinking the vanilla scent

of this one's skin, the lustre

of another's eyes so skilfully

darkened with bistre. And whatever

damage might result we're not

to blame for it: love is an autocrat

and won't be disobeyed.

Sometimes we manage

to convince ourselves of that.

                                                             Julia Copus