Poem 333

An early one, written when I was 18 or 19 …

( I like the double meaning of tender and the way it half-rhymes with pleasure, and the other rhymes and alliteration which make this quite cleverly constructed … )

Tender

And you pay
for the pleasure had ten years ago
dragged and drained
through the nose
                                     and the veins
in the tender of today
you pay through fingers
outspread on the table
when words 
                         have split the fabric
on the seeping sore apart
and always there is
each hard pump of time
to rupture anew
your heart