Poem of the week

From the poet's web site, where he publishes free poems like this one. This is about a love that wasn't love. Sad.

MISTAKEN by Alasdair Gray © 2005

Let me be honest and condemn my love
because of what it does not make in me,
not out of wounded vanity and pride
but for the nothing that it leaves inside.

If love was the dream of a stream and bed a boat
how sweet to float with you my dear
down through the meadows of flowering rush
to the hush hush of breath
over the weir of death.

But love is not just knowledge and tenderness,
a sympathy of brain and heart,
it must be felt hard in the lower part.
Rotten with sympathy, love is a mistake between us two
because you make as little heat in me
as I can make in you.