“The End of an Affair”
reworked tanka
I said, “Don’t love me,
‘we’ can never ever be”.
I said another
held my heart, my hopes, my dreams.
She heard, but Caz did not…’hear’.
We had days of fun.
Romping nights of lusting too.
Overshadowed by
that other lover lurking,
behind doors of memory.
Caz wanted to ask
if my, “Darling I love you”
whispers were for her
or aimed at the other one.
I could not answer truly.
I had no answer
Against insecurity
No reassurance
no unguent, no platitude,
nothing but poignant silence.
Through winter evenings
We stared at embers glowing
in our Queenie stove.
Eating buttered toast. Drinking
special recipe mulled wine.
With each fond gesture
Met with a trite, “Thanks, Darling.”
And clink of glasses
we played games of ‘make believe’.
Caz, and I, were both victims,
Clinging together.
Lost souls. At best, second best.
Damaged goods, flotsam
Detritus overboard from
ships colliding in the night.
Her heart was broken
when I said, “It’s done. No more”.
I stare at embers
now, alone, and wondering.
Wondering and wondering.
I enjoyed this, Coolhermit. I think the ending conjurs up the age old conundrum ‘What if?’ We ask that an awful lot in life, I think. Skillfully crafted.
Thanks Griff, we spend our lives re-arranging the furniture of our past. Sometimes it makes us feel better 🙂
I notice the use of ‘answer’ in quick succession so in my personal document of this poem I tweaked that. 🙂
How the effing hell can we get to edit our stuff on this site – I submitted one for monday – it needs work but I cannot get to it – I’m just going around in circles – the old site was really straightforward – this new version seems dead awkward – i’m sure it’s really simple but I cannot find out how
On every page of a submission (this one for instance), look in the right side column at the box called ‘submission details’. If you are the logged in author of the submission, you will see a link to ‘edit submission’.
Thanks – I was so frustrated – and then once I got the info i found that my bird of inspiration had flown – t’was ever thus – and I could not remember what exactly I wanted to change – but no worries for the future :0