You’ve pulled off the highway to have it out at last
in this small lay-by, improbably picturesque
in daylight, you both recall, but tonight the dark
makes a lit box of the ticking car,
the things that bound you — music, booze —
no longer big enough to exclude
your differences. After a difficult pause
it starts to rain, but the windscreen’s
dry. You’re listening to applause,
the work of many hands in a concert hall,
Vienna, 1991, showering
their praise on two who now fall
silent, their run of luck having found
its exit from felicity, its natural end.