‘In the Middle of the Long Friendship’, by William Meredith

In the middle of the long friendship, five

days of gentlest violence, love

building and brimming, what the hands

rifled by night, eyes by day would restore; rounds

of this, in the strange country where they met,

until parting at the shore, even the grief was sweet.

From “Effort at Speech” by William Meredith (Triquarterly Books: 232 pp., $17.95) Copyright 1997 Reprinted by permission.