Shakespeare's Lovers
       

Shakespeare's lovers lean into the light.
It's dawn, the birds are singing and the sun
is interrupting their shared dreams.
It takes purchase on the windowsills
and throws a woven pattern on the bed.
His villains linger in the shade —

the dark recesses of the mind
where nothing is the way it seems.
They want the darkness to extend
into the newborn day. More eloquent
than lovers they exhale the whole of night's
exhilarating air. The lovers wake and part.

His villains live to make their plots come true:
the maiden raped, the king stabbed in his sleep,
the trust of friends disrupted, undermined.
His lovers have no interest in
who lies to whom, who wears the crown.
They die before their love has chance to fade.

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Copyright © 2018 Ian Parks All rights reserved
from Citizens
Smokestack Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission