Song for the unrequited

We are the ones dull-brained, dull-hearted.
Dumb to feeling, dumb to sense.

We are the ones released to fly and sink.
Pigeon shot on pull, the dead fish rising.

We are the ones made mad by care.
Our care that altered by the other’s care.

(What do they care?)

We are the ones who see the other forming –
a face in foam of cloud, in collapse of dune.

We are the ones half-risen, half-slaughtered.
Alive in memory, quite dead in living.

And we are the ones ridiculous, we clown-foot –
we parade around the big top gurning.