How interesting to find
that your final rejection should
bring such relief…

black strands of needy fatness
falling away from me like rain;
with none of the resistance I expected.

How interesting to learn
that the knowing of you was my pain –
and not the loss I feared, after all.

Those words I had always dreaded:
“I don’t want you.”
were so splendid when they came,
that my world turned quietly sideways
and I caught the view of a love to be lived.

Forever freed from the immensity of your shadow
and the hurt you wheel squeakily behind it.