Here is a hole full of men shouting
‘I don’t love you. I loved you once
but I don’t now. I went off you,
or I was frightened, or my wife was pregnant,
or I found I preferred men instead.’
What can I say to that kind of talk?
‘Thank you for being honest, you
who were so shifty when it happened,
pretending you were suddenly busy
with your new job or your new conscience.’
I chuck them a shovelful of earth
to make them blink for a bit, to smirch
their green eyes and their long lashes
or their brown eyes…Pretty bastards:
the rain will wash their bawling faces
and I bear them little enough ill will.
Now on to the next hole,
covered and fairly well stamped down,
full of the men whom I stopped loving
and didn’t always tell at the time –
being, I found, rather busy
with my new man or my new freedom.
These are quiet and unaccusing,
cuddled up with their subsequent ladies,
hardly unsettling the bumpy ground.