As If Love Could Be Sewn With A Butterfly Stitch... Poem by John Tansey

It was a long and loathsome day.
You and I had been fighting.
I was so sure the sight of blood
would have moved to soften you.

But you barely noticed.
I had to bemoan the pain
for you to ask 'what happened? '

'Cut my finger in the kitchen', I said
hoping, you would lead me to water,
And wash out the bad blood between us...

But rummaging the bags of your eyes
for some fonder time to recall,
I reclaimed an empty palm.
Then, with cradled arms and sucked thumb,

watched you whisk away...
unraveling, as a butterfly stitch,
You disappeared downstairs
even before the bleeding stopped

Clutching my self tighter then,
I knew it was our love that ebbed away...