I thought you'd gone. Really, I thought you'd gone.
I never dreamed you'd never not look back,would even pass my window and not wave.
So music died, heartstrings untuned, gone slack.
I faced my mirror as it were my grave,
the heart stitched to my sleeve come quite undone.
Until the rose, the single blood-red rose,
left on my step, speckled with summer rain
and you, retreating till I called you, dropped
my defences, wept, wept and breathed again,
kissed you until this torn heart's bleeding stopped,
sutured now, comforted and in repose.
For Tess Kincaid's Mag 141 from the Willow Manor.
