Castoffs

I didn’t say half of what I wanted
That day we met for the last time
Complaining about the weather
and working too hard
giving you countless opening for reassuring words
which never came

You didn’t say half of what you should
Not noticing I had cut my hair
Remember the time you begged me not to?
Instead you seemed concerned with the lousy service
and asked about that blue shirt of yours
Could I please try and find it, you said.
It was one your favorites.

I said things I never meant to
That my life was better now
Less complicated
wanting you to shake me
and tell me I was lying.

But you had plans, you said,
And worried about getting a cab
Away from there
and me.

By the way, I found your blue shirt
I even put it on now and again
It was one of your favorites.

 

 

Parallax

My memory has been good to you since you left.
It’s taken you and buffed your sharp edges,
polished up your one-liners,
edited your conversations for wit and sensitivity.
It’s rationalized your selfishness and rather quick temper,
forgotten how you hated sharing a single bed,
inconvenience in general.
It even injects feeling into your empty phrases.
You’d love my memory of you.

So I wouldn’t advise you to come back.
You could never compete
with this memory of mine.
Even your eyes aren’t that blue.

 

 

About the Poet:
Tricia McCallum, a Glasgow-born Canadian, is an award-winning writer and poet and frequent Huffington Post Blogger. She is the author of two books of poetry: The Music of Leaving (Demeter Press, 2014) and Nothing Gold Can Stay: A Mother and Father Remembered in 2011. McCallum also publishes fiction. Her short story “Clutter” won a Toronto Star award for fiction writing. But her unrivalled passion is poetry and is particularly proud to have twice won the member-voted poetry competition at goodreads.com. Her poems are about commonplace things, McCallum says, but she adds that they are not necessarily simple. “The abstract never drew me,” McCallum explains. “I don’t think in those terms. The day-to-day world and all its supposed mundane detail provides me more than I need. “To me it’s not mundane. To me it’s magic.” Read more of Tricia’s work at:
www.triciamccallum.com
www.huffingtonpost/triciamccallum

 

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Photo by Ron Porter.