THE GENESIS OF BLAME

Yes there are times I want to shut you up.
But I won’t tell you this until we’re betrothed.
And then. And then one day I will walk out
Into the garden, the garden where once
We drank wine laughing all summer long
The garden where we kissed and felt
As one together under an impossibly
Perfect and flawless full moon. I will walk
Out into the garden with you still talking
Me saying “No I am listening go on”.
Even though I am not listening
the red octagon in my head flashing
STOP        STOP        STOP
I will go to the apple tree which has always
Held this knowledge secure in its roots
Who knew the first minute of our first date
You would be forever speaking speaking
Speaking and with me only occasionally
listening listening listening until I snapped
Off a twig or two from the few granted
To me and returned to the house where
Soon there would be silence. The deep
Sweet silence of reading and writing.
The silence that comes as conclusively
As winter or the end of another poem.

[The title of this poem is also the that of an astounding lecture by Anne Enright which can and should be consumed here: Link]