It seems yesterday
she lay four eggs by me
but didn't come to stay
she was soon a memory.

Her plume yellow green
eyes dark as sea
a short time she had been
then gone hastily.

She was not by my side
nor in the nesting ***
my heart was pierced wide
she was all I got.

Seeing me glum and hurt
they brought a bluish plume
I shunned her at the start
my heart was still in gloom.

Before long I fell for her
she preened me soft and sweet
helped me heal the scar
get back lost heartbeat.

Back to happy mood
I worked up one new nest
loved her best I could
putting the past to rest.

Rolled by fast the weeks
good times leave in haste
past few eggs and chicks
death laid her to rest.

Like this they came and went
seasons of joy and grief
the ones my love I lent
stayed but for too brief.

Now stalks me the claw of age
my plume are shedding fast
all I have is a cage
to ruminate loves of past.

It's always two minutes to midnight,
and we're always in the Garden of Gethsemane.  
I don't remember when
moonlight started to burn like this, but
it seems like this is all there is, maybe all
there ever was, ever will be.
The brain has never felt more like
spoiling meat, nor the excoriated soul itself
more reassuringly transient,
as we dance these slow, sad waltzes
with mute, irradiated ghosts
beneath the branches of the doveless olive trees.
The night is sharp with splinters and iodine
and other traumas.  Muffled voices, raised
in song: listen! they are singing inside
the fallout shelters.   Ash drifts like
apple blossom.  Wolf skeletons relearn the
ability to howl.  Everything we fear
is inevitable.  Much of it has
already happened.  And maybe tomorrow
won't bring betrayal, crucifixion or torture, just
something else,
something like agony,
I guess.