when you claimed
you’d engineered your self destruction
for my benefit,
and absolved me
of my failure
to save you from yourself.
Like Babel’s Cossack
who didn’t like to shoot a man because it was too impersonal,
and preferred to spend an hour
or more
kicking,
bludgeoning,
bashing,
because when you stomp a man to death, you really get into his soul.
It’s you,
the choke in my throat,
the slight fibrillation with each systole,
whispering, I love you, I love you, I did this for you.
__________
Iris Brossard