Winter Coming – Love Hurts

By Bob McAfee

Seasons race across the space inside my mind.
Too soon and yet too late I find

🩷🩷🩷

that Spring’s absconded, Summer’s fled,
Autumn’s single sigh is dead.

🩷🩷🩷

Winter sits a mourner in some dark and lonely corner
condemned to hiding from the sun.

🩷🩷🩷

Depressed, I get undressed. I am undone.
You only see my back. I am Jack Horner.

🩷🩷🩷

Is it the passing of my youth I dread
or just the vacancy within my bed?

🩷🩷🩷

Broken hearts when young are not so easily unstrung.
The sun and moon can be replaced, the stars rehung,

🩷🩷🩷

but older ravaged hearts when torn apart can only
lie there numb

🩷🩷🩷

muttering vague obscenities
shuttering up old memories.

🩷🩷🩷

Jack now inserts his thumb … there is no plum.

🩷🩷🩷

Bob McAfee is a retired software consultant who lives with his wife near Boston. He has written nine books of poetry, mostly on Love, Aging, and the Natural World. For the last several years he has hosted a Wednesday night Zoom poetry workshop. Since 2019, he has had 101 poems selected by 41 different publications. His website, www.bobmcafee.com, contains links to all his published poetry including ten poems in Micromance.