Abandon

Why did you abandon me?

But you can no longer respond to me,
or any other. I’ve found you again too late.
The grave is unkempt and neglected,
It seems you came to know loneliness
as well as I. Who knows how many years
have passed since anyone stood here and tried
to touch you through the meagre
power of thought?
                               I have persuaded
myself that now I understand. I know
you’re not asleep, there’s nothing
here that ever mattered to the younger,
vital you. The world you lived in
treated you as cruelly as it has
treated me.  You tasted abandon
of another order when he seduced you,
bathing all your apprehensions
in his lissom plausibility. He lied.

No more than an abandoned child yourself,
How could you have tried to nurture me?

Did you decide what they should tell me?
Tell him he’s an orphan. I can die for him
as I must make him die in my heart for me.

But now I’ve found you. Too late
for love or reconciliation. I still
must ache. But now you are heartless.
Surely you must be free?