Where Love Is

for Tom and Kim

Where can love exist?
they wondered, as soon as it arrived
in Melbourne,
inconveniently.

She was a catch
except for one flaw; an Aussie.
He was dreamy
but unfortunately English.

Not flaws at all — charms, delights —
were it not for space and time.
He was leaving. Back to Blighty.
In six short months which might be
enough time to fall in love,
but to what end?

Though hearts can find new homes,
Melbourne isn’t
Manchester and London
isn’t Sydney.

Where can love exist?
they wondered, apart from here and now.
How could they cherish ups and downs
if down was up and up
was down under and
around.

Will love exist there and then?
In all permutations of theres and thens?

A future full of either/ors,
a life unsure, for sure.
A romantic entanglement
to make the brain ache as keenly as the heart.

Best stick to here and now, then.
Stick to one another.
He’d stay longer in Melbourne, of course.
Some day she’d try London, of course.

And whenever big decisions came,
they found their love was bigger.
They found what all along was true:
there was nothing to decide.
Their love was quantum.
It existed everywhere —
in all of space and time, at once
in Melbourne and Manchester,
under Aussie sunlight or Kim’s bright-light,
she’ll be right, mate,
because here is there and then
was now, and now, and
now…

And now to know where love exists,
to see the future, to see beyond the stars,
they just look at one another.
Eye to eye. Dimples to dimples.
Where love is.