Ordinary palm-hearts

There is really no need for you to know

my ways of loving; the ways I have loved you

destitute, desperate, hungry, hollow

but incandescent, a candle whose flame glows

inside a wax canopy, delicately see-through.

You can look at the wax, think what you do,

think my ways are ordinary ways

and that ordinary bit would be as true

there’s nothing to misconstrue

about a candle – wax, wick, a flick of flame;

not even original, just the same

old cliché to keep the darkness ablaze.

The wax the colour of toddy palm-hearts and truth

but you may as well stop at the crust of the fruit.