My Friend

Sad to say my friend your choice
while still young and full of optimism
has come back in your old age to sting
you with the reality that was waiting
in the wings yet coyly masquerading
as love when all it represented was the
opportunity of escape. You, on the other
hand, are at a point in life to which
there is no escape and you yourself
engineered the landscape that has shaped
the present in an unagreeable tableau
that would never have occurred to you
back at a time when you felt so eagerly
flattered by the amorous attention of a
nubile young woman anxious to escape
the smothering lack of promise that
her rural background represented while
you were the urbane, sophisticated and
unhappily married older salesman 
unable to resist a future with a young
and pretty woman whom you could shape
to your own devices only to discover
environment had already shaped her
and you are now left alone, lonely and
elderly inhabiting a 'retirement home'
while she, still young, occupies the
family home, has the vehicle and enjoys
countless trips to exotic destinations.