By Wendy Cope

‘That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love…’
— Emily Dickinson

It wasn’t you, it wasn’t me,
Up there, two thousand feet above
The New York street. Were safe and free,
A little while, to live and love,

Imagining what might have been —
The phone call from the blazing tower,
A last farewell on the machine,
While someone sleeps another hour,

Or worse, perhaps, to say goodbye
And listen to each other’s pain,
Send helpless love across the sky,
Knowing we’ll never meet again,

Or jump together, hand in hand,
To certain death. Spared all of this
For now, how well I understand
That love is all, is all there is.

(From Two Cures for Love, Selected Poems 1979-2006, by Wendy Cope)