Requirement

I require something of you
Which I cannot acknowledge

So I ask it of you in terms of
Making you an offer
You can't refuse.

You take the bait
And I wait
For the goods to arrive

But they don't

For the offer left my hand
like a satellite
On an elliptical orbit

Curving sharply back
To the centre of gravity;

Me

And what comes back
Is not free
Not a gift from you to me

But the unspoken sense
Of your unseen resentment

And the outworking
of my own
Dishonesty.

How is it
That even the most unnatural dealings
All seem to follow the same natural law?






Sarah de Nordwall  May 2003