We were sitting by the window
gazing at the trees
You began screaming:
The house is under attack,
A storm is coming up.
The glass will shatter
We’ll be stabbed.
We’ll be killed
Looking out I saw only the bare branches
Of the maple
And two wood pigeons in the fir tree
were chuckling to each other.
The wind had not changed.
I know it’s midwinter with the bitter
breeze with an edge to it like a knife.
The sun low like an almost empty glass of lemonade.
Sending light through the forsythia onto the old fence.

 
I turned to you puzzled
Reached out my hands to comfort;
But you shouted
Keep away
as you grabbed your thick coat
and ran from the back door into the dark woods.

If there was real danger,why did you desert me?
Afterwards you told me of bad news you’d had.
Seemed like the inside and outside got confused.
I became a Fascist.I was a flaxen Anglo-Saxon.
I was Hitler’s grand-daughter.
I would break my glass and cut your face
with the jagged edges;
And, unlike science,
We can’t go back and repeat the experience
as if it were an experiment.

If you’d stayed a few minutes more
You might have realized
You were half asleep
And dreaming.

Once gone,you’d  probably never return
To the house where  you thought the glass splintered
into shards and cut you to shreds.
I don’t blame you
We are often deceived by our imaginations
We see not what’s here
But what we most fear.
And flee the human contact
Which alone might help.

I always leave the door ajar
And some food on the kitchen table;
In case you come back hungry and tired
It was your mind that shattered,not the glass…
And that’s much harder to mend.
But it can be done
When you stop struggling
And let the inner seas flow free.
You needed a hand
But closeness also frightens you,
And,besides,my hand is not strong enough to hold you.
Only to touch you gently
To say how sad I am