You used to read out our horoscopes
over lazy breakfasts with the Sunday rags.
We'd giggle at "romance in unexpected places",
mock "finances are on the rise",
the new moon always "brings profound changes",
and you'd say "hey, it's all just a load of rot".
While I'd sip my coffee in silent acquiescence,
I'd be secretly hoping that perhaps it was not.

When the stars aligned and brought about our conjunction
who could have foreseen what the fates had planned?
If only we'd known then what we know now,
we'd have seen the danger of uniting two sheep-headed rams.
Those signs of fire mistaken for warmth,
now signs of a love burnt out,
all that's left are dying embers
and my thoughts, full of doubts.

Fate, you had eleven other signs to choose from,
my bad luck you sent one like me.
Where-oh-where was soft, gentle Pisces?
Or dreamy-wet Aquarius?
Sweet, virtuous Virgo promising so much loving.
Or a well-balanced Libran stuck on her fence.
I have taken a Capricorn so, so capricious
or even a narcissistic Scorpio.
I mean, at the end of the day
how many times can you be stung?

No doubt you're now reading the stars over breakfast
with some more 'compatible' sign:
A two-faced, backstabbing Gemini,
a flat-headed Taurean bullock ***-machine,
a free-loving, hairy Sagittarian,
that oh-so-perfect-fence-balancing Libran,
or maybe some gorgeous, leonine Leo
has you wrapped up in his golden, free-flowing mane.

But I hope that when the Zodiac finally stops spinning,
your roulette wheel of life comes to rest on black,
and you land up with an ill-tempered decapod,
a hard-shelled, crustaceous, side-walking crab.