The rose you gave me when we said goodbye

is dying without ever having bloomed:

its petals hug each other close, as though too shy

to bare their virgin beauty to the room,

and now their outer edges curl and dry

like pages in a furnace, or a tomb.

And you and I, too, never did begin

to let love’s chances carry us away;

we stood on ceremony, hushed desire within,

drew lines beyond which we promised not to stray;

and though our chance is lost, with all its kin,

still non, je ne regrette rien, we say –

but that’s a fiction. Oh, why did we wait?

We gave our hearts, and spoke our minds, too late.

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