All Night Vigil Poem by Neil Graham Marsden

By the time you arrived home that morning
I had convinced myself that you had gone forever.
The fact that you had, seemed weirdly irrelevant,
the finale almost.
The you as I had known you, forever gone in one song.

Now you with your flush and me with my hands full of dying dreams
never the twain would meet.
You raced out the words in confused and panicked explanation
If I wasn't suspicious then I sure was now
his name almost visible upon your pouting lips.

Reality dawned there without any warning
and for the briefest of moments
my earlier nightmare scenarios became my preferred goals.
I hate that you revealed that side of me to me
That I would rather you were dead than this.

I allowed your wild ramblings, your moment on the stage,
witnessed you drift into sleep for the second time,
with the second man in one evening,
yet even now you would not really sleep with me.

I ignored somehow his filthy stench
invading all my private places,
overlooked the glow of subsiding passion on your skin,
perfectly round red circles of delight
that would still stain you by the morning light

Your actions placed me there in charge
Of an infantry without bullets.
Sure, I could immediately have ended this charade
or as I chose just then in tiredness and desperation,

cuddle up against you for just one last time.