To Lucy K

and though you purred that I made you chirrup and chortle

more than any other living mortal,

it came down shattering in your room of lilac.

I see no reason why you’ve come unsmitten

with a man you’d loved from your aorta,

who made you breakfast, stroked you, brought you water

in the night, my pretty ginger kitten.

I see no reason, rational or empirical,

why it’s beyond you more than quantum physics

to talk to me, the softest of your critics.

I’m stranded by this crushing, pointless miracle.

What goes up must come down, as proved old Isaac.

It came down shattering in your room of lilac.