Brian Patten
You lose your love
for her and then
It is her who is lost,
And then it is both who are
lost,
And nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.
In a very
ordinary world
A most extraordinary pain mingles with the small
routines,
The loss seems huge and yet
Nothing can be pinned down or fully
explained.
You are afraid.
If you found the perfect love
It would
scald your hands,
Rip the skin from your nerves,
Cause havoc with a
computered heart.
You lose your love for her and then it is her who is
lost.
You tried not to hurt and yet
Everything you touched became a
wound.
You tried to mend what cannot be mended,
You tried, neither foolish
nor clumsy,
To rescue what cannot be rescued.
You failed,
And now
she is elsewhere
And her night and your night
Are both utterly
drained.
How easy it would be
If love could be brought home like a
lost kitten
Or gathered in like strawberries,
How lovely it would
be;
But nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.