ONCE LOVERS

Self-preservation requires

that I may no longer let myself

fix my gaze, or let a glimpse alight,

on old, ever-treasured photographs:

those you lit with light brown eyes and

gently reddened lips together forming

envied smiles, talk of the town for

miles around; you scarcely knew

the purpose of a practised frown,

how to sully, spoil a face;

in hidden places softest down.

 

More than sad should you stay away,

gone, so badly missed, even for a day –

but better than the long dull ache

mixed mercilessly with random

inner quakes that plague inside

each limb, each joint, my head, my brain,

none to be quite the same again,

knowing that your flesh was here

but not yourself, your inner one;

you would not share, at least with me,

the mysteries that make us carry on.

 

My unkind mind declined to talk about

a pact, a treaty, some sweetener of

the sour discord I thought I’d heard and felt,

always I the one who smelled a rat

each time a purring cat wound its

wooing limbs around my legs to indicate

it was the time at which it ate. How blind I was

not to see it purred and pampered me

in thanks displayed quite genuinely –

that it is nature itself to love as one is

being loved, that this is true harmony,…

 

that to be asked for love is rarely

the deceit of the lover asked, no false flattery;

and that to seek love from man or woman

is no shame – no blame should be attached

as therein lies no delinquency. Love should be

nurtured on warm kisses and fed sweet breath,

free to speak without offence, knowing none taken,

bound as closely to mankind as it is to heaven,

But if love has gone, and no trace is left,

set watch over each of their splintered hearts

to restore once-lover lives now love-bereft.