Experience

Now you are gone I kiss your dented pillow
And wonder if it hungers like my breast
For the dear head we both have held in rest.

I said once: Love alone cannot assuage
My thirst, my hunger, love has no reply
For that wild questioning, for this fierce cry.

I said: there is no kiss can feed me now.
Perhaps love is life’s flower: I seek the root.
Yea, I have loved and love is dead sea fruit.

Yet, I lie here and kiss your dented pillow,
A trembling girl who loves you overmuch––
A harp in anguish for the player’s touch.

From On a Grey Thread (Will Ransom, 1923) by Elsa Gidlow. This poem is in the public domain.