'Protocols'

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 these footprints on the lawn
And hold you in its warmth and keeping.

	-- Vikram Seth