“Our almost instinct almost true” – Philip Larkin

They are the old lovers, their sole remains
in this stone. It happens, you know, you spend
life together tossed around in the tributary.

Look at how he tickles her soft quartz nose.
The apophenia of it, love as a found thing
in the rough cast before our crude tools took hold.

This couple in a muted orange glow, their clenching
hips say plenty before the urge for all of our rasping.
Before Homer could tell us how we feel, before Paris

and Helen, Pygmalion, Sonnet number Fifty-Five,
or I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)

this cuddle in the gypsum, the old duet coda, dense

and latent in their resolve. Don’t ponder their Genesis.
Consider their whisper to us: