Sand Poem by Mark Heathcote

I've been holding on to your love for many years.
Feeling you slip through my fingers
Like the grains of some arid sparkling sand.
Sand that'll never be returned is leaving me.

And I won't or can't meet its minuscule demands.
Tides have turned. They are brushing me aside
I've cried before during this long drawn-out period.
But this time all hope is now quite forlorn.

My palms are clammy
And empty of all foreseeable hope.

My heart is a domestic canary no longer singing.
Lay close to dead on its sandpaper floor, wishing,
Wishing it'd stop breathing. But how long
Safely, can anyone hold sand in the palm of their hand?