Dear Friend,

Your beauty has been taken from
those many days you sat–waiting–behind
the front door. I longed
your companionship,
but you know how it is:
slave hours away,
caught in that awful, necessary
world.

Don’t ask why
you are still sitting
behind that front door. Flies
now wait with you
and when home, I bat them
in hopes they
won’t take you just yet.

I could not come to my senses: I
let you sit helpless
like a bored infant in their playpen; I
let you rot unattended
like garbage; I let you
slip on ice.