In retrospect

I made a mistake with you.
I should have let you love me
instead of chasing fireflies and fairy tales
when,
just like so many of us,
I just needed a good woman to straighten
me
out.

That demon may not have entered you
if I had acquiesced and sheltered you
or
seen you for the beautiful and fragile whisper that
you were in the full-throated shout of the city.

They found you pirouetting on the razor's edge of your walk up,
hearing whatever voices had come to you. I wonder
what they said that made you shut your ears?

That was the last I heard of you.

Now I sit in the bone yellow lamplight
looking for the pieces of you,
the shards of should-haves,
breadcrumbs of better times to
lead me back toward you.

But you deserve so much better than
that.

So tonight with
whatever surrounds you,
be it spouse, sorrow, or straightjacket,
wish on the brightest star in the sky
that you never
see me
again.