no remorse
no sorry
no, i wish things could have turned out better

when confronted
like a weasel
you back into a corner
and blame somebody else

what most offended me
was the way you belittled,
his alcoholism…
as a simple symptom
of some condition

if you’d had friends
when you were sixteen
if only you had friends now
if only you’d had, ‘girly chats’
at the age when we really dream

you will never really feel
and always be,
somehow numb
the last to understand the joke

throwing a ball
to an excited dog
whose name –
appears to be tara

the scent of your pillow
lingers after you have left

this is life
and that is what you do
desperately hoping
the children will hide the truth

another product
from the housewife production line
first invented circa 1880 or thereabouts
another product
of the, play your part brigade

or the type
they drip feed you in school
where they expect us to confirm –
to unexplained rules