Arcing head over heel,
gleaming redly beneath
roadside halogen lights,
I rise and fall.  

Impact ripples flood outwards
as I cut the still waters
of some nearby pond.

I drift haphazardly now,
past torpid winter fish,
down into cold sedimented depths.  

The outer world soon becomes
a distant memory as I settle quietly
in a small cloud of softly rising mud
amongst dead and forgotten things.

Unwanted by the hand
that caressed me, I am a pariah,
spurned by he who used me once to ****.  

And I, even tempered,
my body honed to perfection,
can now only look forward
to corrosion’s living death.