I lie here, fresh, pronated,
Sifting through the sheets of my memory
For the strand, a hint, a mark,
A scar
Of her decadent delicacies,
Of urges and celibacies,
Just to quiet me and falter,
And falter hard, mad,
Into the night gentler
Than the lightest of strokes,
     Her touch.

And the moon creeps through my heart tonight—
A chill, a violent chill, still—
An opera, a sonata, an elegy,
A requiem
Just because I fought
     With an angel.*

© 2015 J.S.P.