I want this poem to sound melancholy for you;
a tone that shuffles hushed like shoes;
touches sweet like morning light barnside, struck
by the coltish prance of dawn. I want to mumble
like a razor over stubble, spoken in long
strokes with nowhere to go but up. But
I can't. You bastard, I can't.
Nobody ever saw you chilling in my soul
like a cheap white wine; every inch of your tongue
was a diving board for fiction.
I'd like to say it kinder, but I shan't.
There were as many versions of you
as a lie and I watched them
muscle in like bombers.