Sacrificial Obsession
Quite casual it was. I said: ‘Goodbye’;
You answered with a silent nod. Then I
Departed. At your strongly-termed insistence,
(After three decades of our shared existence;
Such complex years of courtship, marriage, gain,
Children and happiness; of loss and pain,
Love, hope despair and all those nameless things
Which a mixed lifetime’s gathered meaning brings),
The door to intimacy firmly shut.
I have not found, (because I have not sought),
Some substitute to fill that vacancy
Which desolates the inmost part of me;
For could I sacrifice another’s trust upon
Obsession’s altar, as I once did to your own?.
