romance

i saw the edge of sidelined Death
working against the worm of consistency
and meager apportioning of sugar
into that vessel
that held only saturnine tears
before mankind sullied the porcelein
with discoveries of meager means.

used to know what "you" means
before spectral shattering
of that awful term
by the hammers of Love
that beat us into the proportion of each other

i don't need a damn dram to survive on
i ate the last cookie
and you didn't care
and i didn't dare tear you from the glowing green patterns inflected in leaves like life
because i wanted you to know flowers there instead
of all those awful night-based creatures
that rove over stalks and shoots and vines deep in the fall of twilight
which made me fear
like a young child
the beginning of reformatory schooling
just for pressing my palm to some frosted glass window
to say hi to a nun.

well call me red sherrif
under a banner of blood
for i would fight your curse
until the last iron sword broke
beneath banners raised to the sun,
all those medieval archeologies
roving in the dead fecund earth
and smelling like dead wine
finally pressed there
at my funeral
as well received as an archer's arrow in a pot of tea.

old yore,
the countings of Love
in crystalline measure
like sugar
instead of us two worms
dressing up for the act to carry us through sacred sacrament
like misaligned nuns and monks
penitent to the edge
instead of to the violet blade of Romance
pressed into my white breast
like a yearning song of blasted obsidean flame
kept kindred there
in hopes that you won't leave
and that i wouldn't matter
beyond the glancings of well-hewn armor
beneath the catastrophe they called meager salvation
where they left us weak in the hospice
tended to by lilacs
with the firmament of yearnings in our marrow
for those times of old oleander, spring, rust-earth scent and daffodil tallow.

our children, were they blessed?
or did they carry on half-witted and slow
like bludgeoning victims
looking for the blurry outline of the cross
amid all those natural patterns of haze
that had melded our lives together finally
in the dew of morning's old oak?