Robert Ilson
The armless Goddess who had held the world
In her embrace,
The rubbled King whose sneer remains incised in
His shattered face
Are object-lessons both but kept apart :
Loves fail, reigns fall --
One lesson in two forms that is learnt twice
If learnt at all.
Where but in poems can maimed Goddesses
Meet ruined Kings
Finding there equipoised accommodation
For broken things ?