A Wigwam for a Goose's Bridle

Your apology is more hollow than this chocolate egg, 
and by all means hold on to your belief in your own virtues,
but I’d caution you not to grip too tightly lest it shatter
and melt in your warm hands that belie a cold heart. 
You flesh the apology out with vague feelings of missing me, 
and romanticise the idea of being there for me
as though your failure in that regard was not the very cause of our demise,
and still, still you ask me what I want you to do.

I read and reread your polite meaningless words,
words that I predicted yet hoped not to receive.
And all is changed, changed utterly as I realise
this is where a bewildered excess of love, that terrible beauty, dies.





(With apologies to W.B. Yeats)