Off Market

Was it love?
After all,
I was too bitter to be soft  
and you too soft to see me shattered  
in conservatory window  
glare -  I don't know    
if you could have done enough,  
if I could have been less  
than the rough fingers  
plucking your unbroken cello,    
mellowing only in interludes  
of yet another gutter,    
almost helpable    
but never long term,  
not long enough to make fresh  
ambles toward fairer hills,  
hand in hand.  
I think it was, sometimes,    
that you were,  
the highlight of my Winters,    
the only one to go all in
on those lows,    
so I want you to know,    
even in letters I'll never send to oldest loves,  
you were something  
iridescent,
between the blows,  
mostly aimed at myself,  
sometimes at you.