I wish I didn’t think of you every time
I ate ice cream but I’m reminded
of the ritual of dinners on Fridays
and the ice cream afterwards.

If only vanilla or strawberry had sufficed
we wouldn’t have had that fight. 

We could have continued
to talk and laugh and thrive
a whole world left for us to explore
though to traveling with me,
you always said no.

Simply put, simple flavors never interested you.

Everything you wanted had to be the best,
complex, like cookies and cream
with chocolate sauce, butter pecan with
whip cream on top, little edible masterpieces
for the world to see, while my scoop of
strawberry made you to scoff.

Still, you didn’t understand
why I asked us to part.

What point did you see? How would you possibly
ever have learned the truth about me,
that I’m predictable, simple, and sweet,
just like a scoop of strawberry ice cream.

There are places in time
where meetings unleash
fires of forever
burning everything behind
everything ahead
but these meetings missed change minds
change lives, so nothing is left
save simple simmering smoke
only embers in infinite time
a speck in the void of endless space.

I searched her face for it
atonement
in her eyes that had seen
a spectrum of scenes over years
her brow which she could have bent
signaling absolution, but she wouldn’t.

The last thing she did give was a reluctant smile
so I thought, maybe she’s coming round
but before I could sit
listen as she told me again
to always hold my head up high
in the world of vultures, redemption, sin
before I could talk to her of mistakes
and regret, her soul fled.

She laid cowering in the end,
a woman who commanded the attention of
rooms, died at night and took with her
any possibility of absolution.