Adultery: We’re victims we say

We don’t fall in love: it rises through us
the way that certain music does –
whether a symphony or ballad
and it is sepia-coloured,
like tea that stains as it creeps up
the tiny tube-like gas inside
a cube of sugar lying by a cup.
Yes, love’s like that: just when we least
needed or expected it
a part of us dips into it
by chance or mishap and it seeps
through our capillaries, it clings
inside the chambers of the heart
to atriums and ventricles. We’re
victims, we say: merely vessels
drinking the vanilla scent
of this one’s skin, the lustre
of another’s blue eyes skilfully
darkened with bistre. And whatever
damage might result we’re not
to blame for it: love is an autocrat
and won’t be disobeyed.
Sometimes we almost manage
to convince ourselves of that.

Julia Copus
(Bild: David Caruso i CSI Miami)