Two from After

Two poems from our new book, After the Vows: Poems Between Lovers. This book is a collection of 136 sonnets written between my wife and me over about a six year period. It has wonderful range, covering topics from the banal to the sublime. We continue to

You are not Orpheus

You are not Orpheus, love, nor would I

have you be, and I will not slip in to

Hades hands. Understand my love is new

even when mundane is the order of

the day and I wish for words of passion

and wit. My days are incomplete without

a kiss from your lips, in a smile or pout.

Fanciful dreams in romantic fashion

still find their way into the world around

me, but now my prince has a face I can see

and when I look in your eyes, I see me.

My name in your voice is sweeter, I say

more musical than any poetry,

or song, Orpheus ever thought to play.

Siobhan M Pitchford

Aphrodite in Your Shadow

So well you take me as I am. I fear

to imagine what would be should that fair-

fortuned force that fogs your eyes suddenly

shed the scales that put me in your vision

as you describe it. I see no such man

within my mirror, but thank the heavens

that you see me so. And how do I see

you? Aphrodite shone as bright, I'm sure,

yet your steadfast nature is earth scented,

unlike Venus's too fickle fragrances,

therefore so much the more desirable.

Yet, how can I compare you and be fair

when she is myth and you of fleshly make

she I wonder of—you I worldly hold.

David M Pitchford