Working with the Cruel Web of Fate
There is no failure if you did your best in tough circumstances
In the end, you must accept there’s only so much the heart can take — pain rolls in like sea foam from those you love — & gathers in an unseen ventricle for its final assault — in the post, on the phone here it comes, again & again.
The message of hurt — how I failed— the annual Father’s Day vacuum in the mail (the gift that keeps on giving) & I recall all those bank holidays alone while they celebrated and laughed. We are blind to the heart for we barely notice barbs we write — sins of omission, the waspish word
to express matters of such great import — to get things off our chest, set things right. Somewhere, a line of bones stretches across a mountain plateau, a knife mark here & there yet with no clear break for the shattered family to clean its love-wounds & begin again. We continue our Ice Age through the rising heat. And yes, in the end, I’ll leave armed only with cruel words.
Copyright Simon Heathcote
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