All beauty must fade,
          wither, crack, split, die,
                    and so too the beauty
of sweet hospitality
          loses something magical
                    when put to a test.
Splintering down to
          strained smiles,
                    curt little whispers
behind a turned back
          summon up strangleweed
                    between the gaping cracks
of a path we walked
          for so long until "so long."
                    There's a blind desire
to douse what remains
          in that left-behind radiance
                    with a drowning of petrol,
a gasoline baptism,
          and send it out with a pyre:
                    something to remember.