The Bachelor and the Bride

There's a wrinkle in the water

where we laid our first daughter

And I think the wind blows so sweetly there

Over there

And the windows and the cinders

And the willows in the timbers

The infernal rattling of the rain

still remains

"But I" said the bachelor to the bride

"Am not waiting for tonight.

No, I will box your ears

and leave you here stripped bare."

Hear the corncrakes and the deerhooves

And the sleet rain on the slate roof

A medallion locked inside her hand

in her hand

And his fingers are they telling

of the barren of her belly

And his callouses cure her furrowed brow

even now

"But I," said the bachelor to the bride

"am not waiting for tonight.

No, I will box your ears

and leave you here stripped bare."

"But I," said the bachelor to the bride

"am not waiting for tonight.

No, I will box your ears

and take your tears

and leave you, leave you here

stripped bare."