WRITING PRACTICE AND STUDY 2018 SHOWCASE: ‘To S–, during our hardest days’ by MARIE-BERNADETTE ROLLINS

You say you loved me long before the draw.

Not that it matters, but I’m sure you did –

You fed your pleas to Hydra’s lantern jaw,

and softly cried beneath this sleepless lid.

Meanwhile my own resistance left the stage.

My genuflected smile declared our peace –

A stone-cold fear lurked on my tarnished page

you fit too nicely into my caprice.

You’ve died for me: don’t think I haven’t seen.

You queued to join love’s narrow clientele –

And when I missed, you stretched your golden mean

to where I failed, and loved me there as well.