About Loss

People are different
They open a map of the world
To point at places where their lives unfurled
They work brains on gravel roads
Until knackered and moribund.
They pour poetry through pasta sieves held in the middle of it all
Like suspended on a long arm –
And then turn the revels of unconditional love
Into pulp.

What I cherish is the way
You let me be who I wanted to be.
I have the memory of your arm
- it was so bruised, like jilted charm
And your skin was so thin
And you studied the pathology of concrete,
But yet you glued a dancing couple into the night-sky over wild wheat
And the thought of the best of us made me shiver and shake.

You were my paradigm. I gave you love,
A marmalade jar full of fire-flies,
Made up stories and quirky tales,
An afternoon in the park and the summer breeze,
Idiosyncratic music when I couldn’t speak
And a song for your soul to seek.

Yet people are different
And while they operate on the revels of practical love
They may choose to amputate.