Day 7

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.