Wendy Cope, comic master as she is, witty and wry observer of relations between men and women, she still acknowledges the authentic little flutters of love nonetheless.
Here she is in this poem with her simple yet profound style, tackling the conflict between reason and passion, logic and dream, the head and the heart, when it comes to love.
You can't help but smile knowingly along with her sentiments. How often have we wondered along these lines too - 'This is nothing. You're high on the charm and the drink' only to be confronted by something else - 'but the juke-box inside me is playing a song that says something different' - the heart, 'the boss', who is never 'wrong', urging us on to all sorts of romantic adventures (or misadventures.)
After the Lunch - Wendy Cope
On Waterloo Bridge, where we said our goodbyes,
The weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.
I wipe them away with a black woolly glove
And try not to notice I’ve fallen in love.
On Waterloo Bridge I am trying to think:
This is nothing. You’re high on the charm and the drink.
But the juke-box inside me is playing a song
That says something different. And when was it wrong?
On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair
I am tempted to skip. You’re a fool. I don’t care.
The head does its best but the heart is the boss —
I admit it before I am halfway across.
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