This is the first poem in my very first book, and it's called 'Love Poem'.

Love Poem

There is no question
of choice, but it takes
a long time.

Love’s vacancies, the eye
& cavity, track
back to embraces

where the spine bends
& quietens
like smoke in the earth.

Your tongue, touching on song,
darkens all songs. Your touch
is almost a signature.

from Collected Poems (Carcanet , 2001), © Bill Manhire 2001, used by permission of the author and Carcanet Press Ltd.

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