Betrayal
A needle through its eye, his sword has pierced my chest.
To think that I, who studied well anatomy, had not known
Could not know
The shade of red which wells from such a wound,
The tangy smell of iron in the air.
His blade is through my heart, I know,
And death is writ upon my unturned pages.
Still, let it not be said that fate has lacking
Nor that such a lacking be in making jokes,
For fate has frozen time for me to think,
Reflect,
Remember.
Dread.
Oh cosmic comedy! I saw him first
When with autumnal glory
The heavens burned
And fire was in his eye, a flame within responding.
All I did was smile. It was enough.
The winter came, but love warmed us
And through season and fallow we lived
Together in all things.
In time, our children took in hand the fields
And went a-blackberrying
Down through the hedges which he knew.
The songs they sang, ah, how they’d pierce a heart.
But it was not enough. His face which loomed
And wreathed in memory the face of love
Was like a well-worn path too often walked.
It was only once.
But he knew.
His sword is through my heart. How funny, now, to think
About the past betrayals. The love-yous and the see-you-laters
Which were never meant.
But in my way, I did love him. And as I die,
I do not think of stolen moments with some other
Nor repent upon the cusp of death.
Instead, I look him in the eyes
Recalling how I met him first
And all the flames which warmed us.