Phoenix, Blue Dress Poem by Arthur H Rowley

She tells me
‘the issue is I am too eager to save myself'
perturbed, I pull poems of woe
in the darkness
she finds herself watching me sleep once again
and I find,
while listening,
that this is where her plot hides

tells me
‘I have created a black hole
to pull myself into'
‘I cannot afford to be the creator
of another's grief'

she is gone now, and I often think
of whether she would have left me with that tale
had she known me to be listening
or if she waited for a writer's ears to appear deaf
and could not bear to delve any further
lest the fact be unsavoury
or, perhaps, if I was never meant to not be listening at all.