The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure that it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
[Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms]

This is a poem by Roger Pfingston, the best love poem I’ve read in a long time, for which I am grateful to Theresa Smith:

Bones

Today, dear one, I attempt the impossible:
I’m going to love your bones,
I mean love your bones so they will know
that they’ve been loved, so your flesh
will simmer with jealousy, melt and merge
with your bones, be one with your bones
and know how cold your bones have been
without love. Are you ready? Can we do this?

It may not be easy, it may be that bones
remain without love for their own good,
it may be they can’t withstand
the pressures of love, the infectious heat
of love, it may be that bones can only make it
with the hard mouth of Death. Nevertheless
today I am going to love your bones,
beginning of course, with your flesh.