Monday 25 April 2016

You were not to know

I don't know about you. 
But I was a romantic idealist
and made myself very miserable with unrealistic expectations and wistful longing.
Perhaps these are features of youth?


You were not to know

You were not to know
that I was in an invisible shell.

Dwarfs lacking, you couldn’t see
The glass box, open tomb, flower strewn
Where I lay waiting for Count Almasy,
Heathcliff or even Cliff Richard
To bestow the kiss that would crack the spell.

You didn’t know that I would misconstrue
Your stray sonnets and deep sighs
And expect you to hack your way through decades of thick brooding.

Being of a more prosaic mind,
You said goodbye.

So I had my tomb reinforced, double glazed, lead fortified
and wallowed, for a decade or two longer.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

Count Almasy.?..See The English Patient



1 comment: