I remember us speaking when you returned,
Yet we spoke not of your most rank deceit,
Preferring platitudes, as if we’d learned
That biting rancour thrives on harsh critique.
Deft words did probe my heart as if to find
Perhaps some ember left in ashes grey—
A little spark or glow love left behind,
That breath might stir to flame, and light the way.
Puffery was wasted, the hearth stayed cold—
Stone cold, without a glim of hope afore;
And where once smarm could rattle dying coals
Into a raging pyre, now here no more.
This love, black cinders where no Phoenix lives:
Five hundred years or more could not forgive.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.