Poetry 365

I climbed the stairs
to your apartment and
met your old lover and
his friend on the way
out laughing.

I brought you a book
of poems that I love;
you have cooked
a simplified coq con vin.

The evening I decided to love you
you told me you loved me.

Passion declared.
Steak burned.

There is no future for us.
You have discovered the secret
that will bind me to you for life.

I returned.
You laughed.
When I answer my telephone
you are crying.

When I lived with you,
you spend your evenings
memorizing irregular
German verbs; now
that I spend my nights
investigating bamboo taxonomy,
you write that
I have ruined your life.