Too Late Poem by Rafey Habib

If, in ten years, you should come to me, broken,
Your following relationships failed, your
Thighs bloated with cellulite, your cheeks fattened, your spouse
Uncaring; if then you should tell me
You wished you had given yourself to
Me, that night, all those years ago, when
Sitting on a couch I had touched your cheek; if
The emptiness of all these years is what it has taken
To make you wise, to open your
Eyes to what you really want; if in
Dreams between then and now, you have known
Your real desire; if it is now, in your diminished
Beauty and heightened knowing that you wish to give yourself to me,
Then know: know that it was not your beauty
That I wanted, nor now your wisdom: I craved
Compassion, expressed in tender touch: the very thing your years
Will not let me offer now.