Museum-Quality Amour

It didn’t want your sympathy and had no need
Of affection, the hot breath of your infatuate regard.
A building razed, a jungle come, river run to dust,
It proved impervious to flattery as to compassion,
Was unimpressed alike by tears and delicate demand.
Evaporated ocean of time already ticked,
Crumbled cenotaph of consummated things,
It could not be won by favor or made to feign concern
For your childlike intentions, the grubby underwear
Of hope, the essential adolescence of the quick.
No one offered up the parchment you embraced,
The mummified panjandrum, the fossilized ideal,
That unflappable decorum wrapped in its waxy sheet
And laid in the sarcophagus of obsolescent days;
The withered cheek you pecked had never been inclined,
Yet you whispered blandishments, nuzzled the deaf ear,
Clutched the granite vacancy, and what choice did you have?