Nothing to do – Constance my love – with you,

at three, nor some would say with me, at three

score years and ten. You will hold other hands,

tell other men you love them (constantly

or not), and some will answer as I do,

and did, a grandfather who understands

almost too late what love might be: desire
not to possess, but share, another’s self and world.

Neither in love nor now in sympathy
with my own self and mutilated world,
I sense a simpler love, that would require
only that you be Constance, constantly.