Cold comfort

Funny how your comfort can come to be

a sense of being permanently aggrieved;

the plaintiff in a case that never ends,

a man obscurely wronged, deprived, deceived,

awaiting payment of forgotten debts

that now, it’s clear, will never be received.

 

It’s cold out here. Inside, you’ve laid a fire.

I hear you strike a match.

You’ve left the door unlocked. My fingers, numb,

are fumbling with the latch.