tremulous and tender, the crook'd finger
neither timid or tentative,*
yet trembles,
though it be from
care, not fear, consideration, not trepidation

the renegade finger strokes her sleeping cheek,
tender the tip to each cell beloved, as if sealing a bond
there is no more to say

when awakening comes, one will be gone,
with no note, thus this last soft stoking, outline stroking
tremulous and tender, his finger, U shaped-crook'd,
but he is no longer is her
you

he leaves, departing, yet lightly shaking,
no longer can he be her prized and proud claiming show-horse,
gone, that man she loved, for he cannot abide his being
called a former, dark glory, a bent cane spirit,
his body, its entirety,  
crooked by weight of an improvident provision,
not just his finger, this, his, 
a greater intolerable,
his pain of failure unacceptable
and shame searing,
his woe bends his love acrooked