Love by the book

Happy Lovers by.Jean-Honore Fragonard, approximately 1760.

by John MacBeath Watkins

Let's love each other by the book

and by the film and by the play

We'll skip the sly come-hither look;

such romances are concluded in a day

Instead we'll meet, and bicker, and fight

and regret that we drive each other away

I'll wear black, and you'll wear white

and your disapproving father will be gray

I'll be the professor, bewildered and amusingly enraged

and you will be my manic pixie dream girl

My severe fiance will become estranged

as I'm drawn into your disorienting whirl

We'll argue 'til we're laughing, struggle 'til we're man and wife

and rather strangely burst out into song

One alternative is drama, poison and the knife

and final scenes that always last too long.

Or I can be the rebel that only you can change

arriving out of nowhere on my

motorcycle/space ship/stallion on the range

and you'll be lovely, innocent, and shy

You will save me from myself and I

will save you from a most unlikely danger

and our audience will be transfixed, and cry

about the girl next door and the taciturn stranger

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