Semblance

As he saw it,
civility would restore good feeling,
and the semblance of love
would be enough

to get by on
until love itself could be rediscovered.
And if there was never anything

more than semblance --
well, that would have to do.
He could manage with that.

--Alice Munro, "Silence"
(New Yorker, June 14&21, 2004)