I’ll Tell You the Truth About Love

(A response to W. H. Auden’s “O Tell Me the Truth About Love”)

A poet named Dubya Aitch Auden

Once asked for the Truth about Love,

Untarnished, unsoiled, unsodden?

We hope and pray heaven above.

I think of a Hepburn named Audrey,

And then of another named Kate,

Who prove that Truth needn’t be tawdry,

And that Love is both wild and sedate.

..

So I say, late lamented friend Dubya,

That the Truth about Love is elusive.

Sometimes Love may seduce and then club ya

Sometimes Truth is not gladness-conducive.

But the Truth about Love is it’s needed,

And can beckon and cure the uncouth,

And the Truth is it’s lovely when heeded,

And is much that I Love about Truth.