If I were to make love

If I were to make love to the love of my life
I wonder where it might be:
Buckingham Palace would be vulgar and kitsch…
Even if they gave us the key,

I’d spurn the offer in favour of somewhere –
Somewhere that’s quite unspoiled:
Sunlit glades and birdsong in overgrown woods
Where a guardian snake lies coiled.

Or we’ll be mermaid and merman underwater
Blowing bubbles in a secret cave;
We’ll live on raw fish and raw love, only surfacing
Once in a while to breathe.

We’ll try the Dream Hotel at the Burning Man festival
Whose beds are rumored to vibrate your soul,
They’re a kind of physical-metaphysical trampoline
On which you fly while you rock and roll.

Or maybe we’ll meet at the centre of a maze
After solving some complex clues.
We’ll lose each other then we’ll find each other,
Then we’ll giggle and be confused.

It’ll be somewhere where no one can find us
As we play a passionate hide and seek,
Then we’ll face each other and lark around naked
And leave it to our bodies to speak…

To speak of changing the world so that it accords
With the fleshy talisman that we now create –
Love’s talisman that casts a spell on life to show
That it’s served better by love than by hate.

Heathcote Williams