Bottles And Buts Poem by Tony Jolley

All the anticipation, expectation & prognostication having systematically considered
Every one of the almost infinite permutations and possibilities,
Assigning each its own probability,
The mediation meeting should surely have held not a single surprise.

Sure enough: it didn’t…
I’d plotted the point with such microscopic measure.

Then why, when it came,
As familiar as a family face,
Did I feel my fingers fumble
For the business-like bottle of branded water
Only to feel it flinch, frozen from my grasp:
Its condensation recoiling
From an unwelcome arranged marriage
To the sweat standing proud on my palms –
Palms that felt as dry as the strangled cry stuck in my craw?

Maybe it wasn’t me.
Maybe the water-with-a-will
Was simply sneering at the no-name plastic cup:
Its all-too-unattractive, decanted destination.

“Love you………but can’t.
Love you………..but won’t.
Love you………..but……”

But to me, everything but love can have buts;
But then….. is this love?