I like the way the poem creates passion by fighting with the form and the envelope rhyme. In this case the imagery works well in what is an unusual subject area for me.
Aubade
In the half-light, before the workday stir,
three strips contour her body, cross the bed
and this dull morning seems a watershed
with me indifferent to the sight of her
as, with her sleeping eyes, she is to me.
Once I had rockclimber’s hands: worn thin,
one layer more naked, they’d sense her skin
aware an inch away, like witchery,
yet over years hands callous with the wear
of touching her, and fierceness seems absurd
as does delusion when the fever’s cured,
and the strong arch our marriage made won’t bear
a tower to our passion, or a child’s home.
Instead there’s empty stairs and controlled climate,
too many books, too much reason for quiet
where something squalling with life might have grown.
I stand in the door, neither there nor gone;
through blinds the sun insinuates its way,
casting a chart of the approaching day
where I should lie, and where her arm is thrown.
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