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a little more civilized since then, and we can move through the stages of loss and grief that mark the end of a relationship in a more gradual and accepting way. Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem, “when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story,” and Elizabeth Alexander’s “The End” both describe relationships in which eventually even the memory fades away. Then, we can understand what we have learned and begin the search for love again.

Lilacs

KATHERINE GARRISON CHAPIN

When I met my lover

Lilacs were new,

He said, “I brought some lilacs,

Lilacs for you.”

I took them eagerly

Laughing in surprise;

He said: “They are pretty

Just like your eyes.”

I pressed the pointed blossoms

Close to my cheek,

And the smooth green leaves . . .

But I couldn’t speak.

How was I to tell him,

Spring being new,

How say: “It is the lilacs

I love, not you.”

Unfortunate Coincidence

DOROTHY PARKER

By the time you swear you’re his,

Shivering and sighing,

And he vows his passion is

Infinite, undying—

Lady, make a note of this:

One of you is lying.

The Philosopher

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

And what are you that, wanting you,

I should be kept awake

As many nights as there are days

With weeping for your sake?

And what are you that, missing you,

As many days as crawl

I should be listening to the wind

And looking at the wall?

I know a man that’s a braver man

And twenty men as kind,

And what are you, that you should be

The one man on my mind?

Yet women’s ways are witless ways,

As any sage will tell—

And what am I, that I should love

So wisely and so well?

From Summer with Monika

ROGER McGOUGH

away from you

i feel a great emptiness

a gnawing loneliness

with you

i get that reassuring feeling

of wanting to escape

I’m Going to Georgia

FOLK SONG

I once loved a young man as dear as my life,

And ofttimes I told him I’d make him his wife.

I’ve fulfilled my promise, I made him his wife

And see what I’ve come to by being his wife.

I’m going to Georgia,

I’m going to roam,

And if ever I get there,

I’ll make it my home.

My cheeks were once red, as red as a rose,

But now they are as pale as the lilies that grow;

My children all hungry and crying for bread;

My husband, a drunkard, Lord, I wish I were dead!

Come, all young ladies, take warning by me:

Never plant your affections on a green, young tree;

For the leaves will wither and the buds they will die;

Some young man might fool you as one has fooled I.

They’ll hug you, they’ll kiss you, they’ll tell you more lies

Than the cross-ties on the railroad or the stars in the skies;

They’ll tell you they love you like stars in the West

But along comes corn whiskey; they love it the best.

Go, build me a cabin on the mountain so high

Where the wild birds and turtledove can hear my sad cry.

A Type of Loss

INGEBORG BACHMANN

Jointly used: seasons, books and music.

The keys, the tea cups, the breadbasket, sheets

and a bed.

A dowry of words, of gestures, brought along,

used, spent.

Social manners observed. Said. Done. And always

the hand extended.

With winter, a Vienna septet and with summer I’ve

been in love.

With maps, a mountain hut, with a beach and

a bed.

A cult filled with dates, promises made

as if irrevocable,

enthused about Something and pious before Nothing,

(—the folded newspapers, cold ashes, the slip of paper

with a jotted note)

fearless in religion, as the church was this bed.

From the seascape came my inexhaustible painting.

From the balcony, the people, my neighbors,

were there to be greeted.

By the fireplace, in safety, my hair had its most exceptional

color.

The doorbell ringing was the alarm for my joy.

It was not you I lost,

but the world.

On Monsieur’s Departure

QUEEN ELIZABETH I

I grieve and dare not show my discontent,

I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,

I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,

I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.

I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,

Since from myself another self I turned.

My care is like my shadow in the