Playing cards, a time out of mind...
'Playing with embers', he said,
filled with sun,
in my mind I am already Hell-ward,
to hell.
My cheeks enflamed,
a burnt offering of shame.

As my own darkness engulfed me
I looked to the Archer of Light,
whose blunt bolts (belonging to the bow),
and shrouded, virile, animus intention
has already bore through mine own virtue.
And whose prospering scepter of ambition
I felt, once,
in a dream somewhere,
pressed, blistering against my form.