The point of view of the young lover in the movie "The reader" where Kate Winslet plays a **** guard to a prisoners camp... and her 20 years in prison. This verse is the young lover's thought, who finally let her go, when he meets her first at the court house and then again at her release day... and she committed suicide at the end of her prison term, when he comes to pick her up.
________

I let her go
Where I could have changed
Changed her destiny
Can I live with it


I could not
And took the role Of "The reader" again
To let her live
And Outlive my shame
Of letting her go
And she did


How I let her go
To die alone
In her pain Again
She took
The memory of her
Out stretched hand
Unheld in my hands
As the kiss of death


How small things
Change and grow
In that void of cell
To burn "a desire"
To learn and communicate
To me, through my voice
Ringing in her head

How big part
I was
Of her life
And
How I cleave it out of her heart
In the end


How she held on to
The last straw
Of my reaching out
Again
How things change
How people change
And
How cowards like me
Let her go so quietly in pain
In vain