LOVE SONG
For seventeen years Eliot loved Hale
only to suddenly
disavow her when finally able
to consummate.
She was only ever in love with my reputation,
he justified without evidence.
She would have killed the poet in me,
so the old argument goes—
the one that keeps women as muses
but their needs at a distance.
Of his wife, Vivienne he said
all I wanted was a flirtation
but marriage burnt his boats
and kept him home, so easy
a thing to blame.
Oh the burden of responsibility!
So good for a man's art and bad for his health!
While Vivienne and then Hale
at the sanatorium
blame a case of nerves.
So many men so capable of ideas,
and he alone on his wasteland
seemingly terrified of the fact.