The Fall of Rome

ooooooLike being told to try
ringing handbells in a small
cave to hear a different
music or to learn to miss less
an old one, there were just

the two kinds of forgiveness
back then, the one where
we start over again with
someone we’ve hurt or been
hurt by, but keep the past

in view; and the kind that
requires forgetting the past
or agreeing to have somehow
misunderstood it, the hurt
wasn’t meant, or we were

neither of us who we are
now, so how can it matter
anymore, should it, why does
any of it, the dark last night,
the light this morning, in which

there remains, still, though
torn a bit, the question
of happiness. Blue, the way
lagoons are said to be. Are
said to be. Though they are not.