There Never Really Was a We or Ours

Derek Walcott
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There never really was a “we” or “ours,”
whatever each enjoyed was separate,
a drizzle’s drift, the slant of arrowing showers
on a hot road, on roofs, made them elate,
but with a joy defined by separation—
the languor of a glittering afternoon
when a bay’s bowl is full of glittering coins,
or a white road is paved by the full moon,
the same delight that separates them joins
without conversion, but close to happiness
in accidental gusts that made the leaves
agree unanimously with one green yes,
yet made a dark division of their lives.
The clouds shone altar-white on moonlit nights,
he was the stubborn, sacrificial victim
of his own hopes, like fireflies whose lights
are like false stars that, with the daylight, dim.

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