PoetryAloud

---

Maureen Doallas Reads

Few Precious Words to
Grind ~ A Villanelle

I have few precious words to grind,
to work through meaning cold lips deny.
It's time, you said; you changed your mind.

I urge you stay. You rush to go, to put behind
my mourning long from quick goodbyes
that leave no precious words to grind,

to parse how love could track so blind
and barbed to make me red- and redder eyed.
It's time, you said; you'd changed your mind,

found others do where no oaths bind.
To me your promise once gave lie,
such precious word I grieve to grind.

No riddle solved, no reason find.
This heart you took and broke; but why?
It's time, you said; I've changed my mind.

From you I turn; I speak, unkind.
This bitterest root I plant yet cry,
Leave me some precious words to grind.
No time, you said; I've changed my mind.

Maureen Doallas

Return to PoetryAloud                           Read Maureen Doallas' poetry here.