Lovesong

He loved her and she loved him. 

His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to 

He had no other appetite 

She bit him she gnawed him she sucked 

She wanted him complete inside her 

Safe and sure forever and ever 

Their little cries fluttered into the curtains 

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away 

Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows 

He gripped her hard so that life 

Should not drag her from that moment 

He wanted all future to cease 

He wanted to topple with his arms round her 

Off that moment's brink and into nothing 

Or everlasting or whatever there was 

Her embrace was an immense press 

To print him into her bones 

His smiles were the garrets of a fairy palace 

Where the real world would never come 

Her smiles were spider bites 

So he would lie still till she felt hungry 

His words were occupying armies 

Her laughs were an assassin's attempts 

His looks were bullets daggers of revenge 

His glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets 

His whispers were whips and jackboots 

Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing 

His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway 

Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks 

And their deep cries crawled over the floors 

Like an animal dragging a great trap 

His promises were the surgeon's gag 

Her promises took the top off his skull 

She would get a brooch made of it 

His vows pulled out all her sinews 

He showed her how to make a love-knot 

Her vows put his eyes in formalin 

At the back of her secret drawer 

Their screams stuck in the wall 

Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves 

Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop 

In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs 

In their dreams their brains took each other hostage 

In the morning they wore each other's face

Ted Hughes