I’ve had a few poems up from the great Hugo Williams, and here’s another. A keen and unsentimental observer of “how we love now”, he’s near his best in this short offering.
The Couple Upstairs
Shoes instead of slippers down the stairs,
She ran out with her clothes
And the front door banged and I saw her
Walking crookedly, like naked, to a car.
She was not always with him up there,
And yet they seemed inviolate, like us,
Our loves in sympathy. Her going
Thrills and frightens us. We come awake
And talk excitedly about ourselves, like guests.