sestina time

Sestina On Being Made Single. Again.

 With fingers lifted at a cigarette,

your lips part; slow, deliberate. And one

by one the dreams we had are all but spent,

as ash which falls - betrayed - to death, by fire.

The plastic cup, half filled with coffee close

to cold, is nearer to your heart, and set

down with more tender touch than I am: Set

aside. Draw on the butt of cigarette

again, or move to speak if you must close

this door. I’d rather that you’d shout out one

venomous, sulphur- stream of fire,

- and rage until all bitterness is spent –

 

than smother me with silence. We have spent

years arriving at this ending. I set

my heart on you; on stoking up your ‘fire

of passion’. You. A man in cigarette

pants; dirty. Shirt; a Che Guevara one.

Remembering you then, too far to close

the distance, too long ago, to get close

to you now. Reclaiming all the time spent

in snuffing out the spark, splitting the one-

ness into two, is futile. We are set,

now, on this path. And like your cigarette

my hope is all consumed today in fire.

 

You stare at me. And I with rapid-fire

of words unspoken, untumbling, close

my eyes and breathe your smoking cigarette.

In aspiration I am all now spent

out. Resign myself again to being set

up on the shelf; and ready meals for one;

 

or hitching up my skirts for fumbled one-

night-stands; imagining lost cats so fire-

men come - my only company; and set

ups with Toms, Harrys – Dicks all, far too close

for comfort. All too far away. I’ve spent

too long embraced here by your cigarette

 

smoke. That cigarette that takes me back one

lifetime. One spent, dulled, burnt out, lifeless fire

close to its end, and it will not again be set.