My failure when in late hours she is
cradling shards in her stomach from
truths out of reach but felt like God
Red-faced  defeated by the prospect of saying
one ordinary thing  by the idea of average and
left turning to anyone waking  to
sorry company who will type thoughtless
aspirations of mornings breaking in reward
is that I am a man who, as so many, am faulted
who never learned to listen without
suggestions  to be  selfless and only
a drain she can pour herself into until
nothing remains so far in the night to
put a hand on or through   to be conscious
that care is the absence of solutions   the
erasure of consolation   exists not in discovering
the quickest way to plaster over
the holes she’s punched through herself
but in the communion  the bearing witness
that each hole is a necessity and
in their absence she wouldn’t be able
to stand in front of any mirror
and see her own face