In a foreknowledge of my years I might have sighed:
Has it all come to this?
A walking out of doors, another goodbye?
Symbols of a pattern dance before my gaze
And I am unseeing.
Is the end prize emptiness in this tangled maze?
It seems to me now almost a style of life.
It mocking-mirror laughs
And throws down my failures - not woman, not wife.
They lay, gauntlet-challenge, offcast glove -
An old-fashioned style.
And I kick at this loathsome shell, once my love.
The dusk draws on in as the doors shut behind,
And the question unsolved.
So I take leave again, step on into the wind.
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(c) Copyright John McNeil, all rights reserved. Apart from the purposes
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of the author. He may be contacted at jandhmcneil<a>paradise.net.nz