I Met My True Love Walking by Marly Youmans

I Met My True Love Walking

I met my true love walking
. .Out in the open air,
My arms all piled with books
. .And flowers in my hair.
Summer sun was spilling
. .Fine arrows everywhere,
And I was struck by gold
. .And bright, magnetic stare.

I met my true love strolling
. .Along the bayou’s edge,
Where thrushes sing in rain
. .And crickets in the sedge.
The light caressed his face
. .As he ringed my wrists with wire,
As he filled my hands with stones
. .And gave me to the mire.

by Marly Youmans

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Twitter: @marlyyoumans

Editor’s Note: Just when the reader loses all hope of escaping the sweetness of this poem, the last four lines redeem it utterly.

Note from the poet: The trimeter quatrains are close to ballad meter. And the poem has a certain slantwise relationship to Yeats’s little song, “Down by the Salley Gardens.”