forget the flowers. I pulled them all up
by their roots, placed them in a pile
readied for compost. and the moon?

turn it off. I don’t need its light
to wake me, guiding me to where you wait,
away from this solitary path, by the lake

in which I would drown of love if love
would ask me. you may think it sad
to have given up at my age–to never

want to know another stranger’s name,
to feel these old feelings–but damn it,
I just can’t take what always comes next:

the denouement, the dying down, a lover
inevitably in need of a little time to rest.