PROTOCOLS
      - Vikram Seth

What can I say to you? How can I retract
   All that that fool, my voice, has spoken -
Now that the facts are plain, the placid surface cracked,
   The protocols of friendship broken?

I cannot walk by day as now I walk at dawn
   Past the still house where you lie sleeping.
May the sun burn away these footprints on the lawn
   And hold you in its warmth and keeping.