"Forgiveness" by Henry Carlile

I'd like to turn the other cheek,
the one I haven't shaved yet,
but something stops me like a jab to the solar plexus,
a blow to the immense
unmissable cuttlefish of my ego
that scuttles backwards
spewing out clouds of ink,
self-consoling platitudes like she wasn't worth it, or
I'm better off without her,
which of course do not console
because they are platitudes.
And time's slow ambulance
drawn by a brace of snails
arrives too late to do anything
but remind us that this
was the scene of an accident
long after the damage
has been swept away.

—Henry Carlile