Where a word leads: "abeyance"

This morning I planned to write about what is becoming an annual May event: the holding pattern. My brain kept bringing me the word "abeyance." This led to memories of a poem and a poet I studied in great depth long, long ago. I couldn't find a poem with the title I recall, "In Abeyance," but I found this one. I thought I understood it when I was twenty. I didn't. Not at all.

The Ache of Marriage

Denise Levertov (1923 - 1997)

The ache of marriage:

thigh and tongue, beloved,

are heavy with it,

      it throbs in the teeth

We look for communion

and are turned away, beloved,

each and each

It is leviathan and we

in its belly

looking for joy, some joy

not to be known outside it

two by two in the ark of

the ache of it.