Half and half

I have started attending a creative writing class. I wrote the following poem for Anne:

Aristophanes, the comic, tells his tale of Love:
Once were creatures with four legs and four arms,
with two faces, and two sets of wobblies.
Happy and ambitious, they’re an affront to the gods,
who split each in two, and doom them to wander,
incomplete, always searching for their other.

An aeon’s stretch (and yet so fleeting)
Since the day of our first meeting.
Across the room I smile at you
And you smile back, and we are two!

And, in time, we test and taste,
Our fingers lace, our arms embrace.
We find how neat and snug we fit;
No longer two, we’re composite.

And since we find ourselves at ease
we combine our books and our LPs.
When you’re happy I smile, when I’m sad you sob,
and when we collide, our wobblies throb.

We climb over rocks to a sheltered pool.
We strip and swim and act the fool,
your wet body gleaming in the summer sun,
until a fisherman’s boat interrupts the fun!

“We” are pregnant and your belly swells.
“We” have babies and your breasts fill.

And so, years pass and at the end of each day
we lie together and we talk and we play,
and we roll and turn like synchronised spoons
(Oh, thanks for your light, all you silvery moons).

Our hair grows grey and our features soften.
We’ve grandkids now and they visit often.
And grandma’s hugs are best, they insist,
when she squeezes their puddings, then gives them a kiss.

But then a time comes when your body betrays you
and our fingers lace, and my arms embrace you.
We’re scared, despairing, hopeful, confused,
and when hope is gone we each say “I love you”.

And now, at night, when I turn on my side
my arm grasps at a you-shaped void.

The comic poet has had his laugh
and I am sundered, broken, half.