In spite

The things I wish you had thought,
make me a virus.

You singing in winter
you on stage
you at that gig when I wished you could be quiet
and not force to the front,

those long frenetic fingers
panic your inner elbow
trying to scratch some irritation,

bringing up geranium welts,
that sit open like a mouth.

I ask you in conversation
why you treated me so cruelly
flexing my wrist as if swinging a tennis racket
on our way across to a platform by the lake.

You laugh like a song
and wish you could remember.