Poem of the month

selected by David Underdown, who provides the footnote.

The Marriage

By Anne Stevenson

They will fit, she thinks,
but only if her back bone
cuts exactly into his rib cage,
and only if his knees
dock exactly under her knees
and all four
agree on a common angle.

All would be well
if only
they could face each other.

Even as it is
there are compensations
for having to meet
nose to neck
chest to scapula
groin to rump
when they sleep.

They look, at least,
as if they were going
in the same direction.

Anne Stevenson was born in Cambridge in 1933 but brought up and educated in the USA. In the 1950s she returned to Britain, lived all over the place for a while (including Glasgow in the 1960s) and eventually settled in Wales. She has published over a dozen poetry collections as well as acclaimed critical studies of Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath. She took a jaundiced view of marriage. This was based on personal experience. She said that it took her two unhappy marriages and three children to ‘make me reconsider my assumptions’.