My Dearest Capulet,

As I write you in these waning hours
(The number of my sunrises and sunsets finite,
Easily counted upon either hand)
I do so resigned to the certainty
That this missive shall remain unanswered,
Most likely forever unread--but tell me, dear lady
To whom else would I address this correspondence,
For who else is more likely to understand
That love and hate are not opposite poles,
But are as the hissing, slathering jaws
Of that dreadful two-headed snake,
Which, if not separated by a prudent interval,
Will consume the other and then itself.
I have lived and learned this quite well
(At the hands of teachers and other lesser men)
And pondered other questions of fatality and fidelity,
Surmising that rings of gold and fetters of iron
Are neither necessary nor sufficient.

If I have not come to peace with my fortune, distant soul mate,
I have at least procured a measure of acquiescence,
For I have known love and hate and death,
Known them thoroughly enough to comprehend
That they are not wholly separate entities,
And that they will often appear at one’s door
Wearing the formal attire of one of the others.
I have burned, brightly if not in illumination,
And now I am spent, a charred celestial body
Rotating ever more slowly
Until a final, silent, unobserved obsolescence,
For after we have loved profoundly if not well,
What is left to us but the sepulcher?

I remain faithfully yours,