Poetry

This is not Love

It is not the stuff sonnets are made of,

Not like the sun.

It is more like the three beer-mats

we stole from the old pub

near Where we used to live,

that are now wedged underneath

one of the legs of our kitchen table.

I do not love you,

I stolen-beer-mats you.

Or, perhaps, it is something like

that glass we lifted from the up-town

joint in London when we went to visit

your mother before she died.

we made a candle of it,

that now sits on our mantle-piece,

I stolen-glass-candle-you.

And so as we toast the last ten years,

I tell you for the first time I do not love you,

and you smile.

“You steal me.” I say.

We lift our glasses, you smile, and

Steal me again.

Jon Payne