Suddenly, all those sad Decemberists songs
we sang on our beds, your car, the bus
to Heathrow, apply to us.
Well, except that one
about the chimney sweep whose love is dead
and the barrow boy whose love is gone
the Yankee soldier whose love is torn from him by war
the Odalisque whose lover is drowned
the double spy who trades a tryst in the  
greenery for documents, and microfilm too.

We are not the star-crossed William and Margaret
whose hazardous love provoked a cruel Queen,
their fates tangled in the roots of the Taiga.
We never made it to Grace Cathedral Hill
to watch the city lights in the cold New Year night.
I was more brine and **** and vinegar
than you knew.

I'll let you know if they ever write a song
for ill-timed confessions and bitten back words
and the way love can run out
like an empty tank of gas
halfway to the sea.