Insulin Couldn't Insulate Your Passing Poem by Mark Heathcote

We spoke of love the day we met.
But here now, I speak of your death.
It's a death long after our hearts
clattered like a broken windowpane
why did we separate, and why did she?
Bolt the door and latch the windows.

Was it? You didn't want to share?
Your TV remote control any more
given that your doctor had spanned out
your lives span ten-score years, none more.
And, of course, you couldn't climb the stairs.
Insulin couldn't insulate your passing...

Nor the thirteen years spent fighting-
for life, amassing your bitterness
like a bleared black-and-white movie
like the late great actress Bette Davis,
noted for her willingness to play,
unsympathetic, sardonic characters.

You so-admired her; her films transfixed-
you, 'first loves are the hardest to separate.'
What you can't keep, you drown in the lake.
This is what you knew, and that is what became
of my lifelong love for you.
Mistakes made—would I make them again?

We spoke of love the day we met.
And for me, it was a day never to forget.
We spoke of love the day we met.
But here now, I speak of your death.
Our old house together stands empty.
The doors are swung open, and the windows-

They're all repaired with a clean coat of paint again.
Mistakes made—would I make them again?
As I get older, I'm not so sure, after all this pain.
It'd be better for me and Bette Davis, both, I guess.
We never met, and I ran away to another gal
Bolted the door and latch the windows tight.