Marriage and Midsummer's Night

Painting by Mark Chagall


Marriage and Midsummer’s Night


It has been a long time now
since I stood in our dark room looking
across the court at my husband
in her apartment.
Watched them make love.
She was perhaps more beautiful
from where I stood than to him.
I can say it now:
She was like a vase
lit the way milky glass is lighted.
He looked more beautiful there
than I remember him the times
he entered my bed
with the light behind.
It has been ten years since I sat
at the open window,
my legs over the edge
and the knife close
like a discarded idea.
Looked up at the Danish night,
that pale, pale sky
where the birds that fly at dawn
flew on those days all night long,
black with the light behind.
They were caught by their instincts,
unable to end their flight.

Linda Gregg

Posted over on Poetry Foundation