Transformations
If he had been braver or less brave.
If she had loved him more … or less.
If they had been honest or not so.
But he wasn’t, she didn’t, they weren’t.
And so their thwarted passion feeds
the fury of her disappointment.
What she would once love to distraction,
she now hates to destruction .
All has become nothing at all.
Anger disavows the love, denies
the terrible assault of compassion
that would prise open the wound.
What she once craved, she must deny.
What was too close, must now be distant.
The hurt must be transferred; sanity
restored with shallow pride.
