The Collector (Poetry)

A thousand pictures, lovingly aligned -
old cuttings from the glossy magazines
that featured her - the darling of the time -
she fills his walls and haunts unlikely dreams.

She smiles upon him, and he thinks he knows
the secrets that she kept for all those years,
there is a veil, unbroken - nothing shows
beyond that smile, she hides her private tears.

She is the air he breathes, his food and drink -
without her, he could never face the day;
he doesn't care what other people think,
is resolutely deaf to what they say.

She shared a moment with him - years ago,
when, for an instant, their two hands had touched
and she gave him something - like an inner glow.
He muses on it, dwells on it too much.

A mortal goddess, flawed and doomed to die,
he lays a flower on her altar-shelf
and, locked in his obsession, wonders why
his love had failed to save her from herself.