Maintenance as Love

Atlas

There is a kind of love called maintenance,
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it,

Which checks the insurance, and doesn't forget
The milkman, which remembers to plant bulbs,

Which answers letters, which knows the way
The money goes, which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely, which upholds

The permanently ricketty elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork, insulates my faulty wiring,
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes, remembers
My need for gloss and grouting, which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.

UA Fanthorpe, Collected Poems (2005).