Like a Brick to the Head

And here’s your forever love for me

back, along with your African violets,

a toothbrush, a half empty bottle of Bushmill’s.

Do you want the Miles Davis

and Dave Brubeck Quartet

CDs, or will it kill

you to let me keep them? I do have some

good memories—Wheatland, Blackthorn

Pub, Friday night bonfires, that weekend in Niagara Falls.

But here’s a list of all the dumb

and spiteful things you did to me: a hair from the unborn

baby we never had; a corner slice of lemon cake

from the wedding reception lost in time;

a doll for the granddaughter

we left behind in theory; the ache

in my heart drowning in the slime

of another rainy day. They’re all rainy days now.

Here’s my hope, shriveling. Here’s my broken joy.

Here’s my new life, love letters ripped to shreds,

which I’ll have to reassemble somehow.