A holy artefact wrapped up in clouds,
ascending heavenward in a thunderstorm
and during a pail of hale I screamed out "Hail!"
but there was no celebration
in the circumcision of my heart.
A roar crescendoed from darker places
and consumed the fading purple sky,
and a lie beheld the firmament,
an orange hope that flickered when it should have flamed.
I wrote my rites of passage on stone for you,
but how quickly erosion wore them away,
until only the softest fingertips could trace the shadows.
There was so much poison in the way you said goodbye,
the silent ringing of the ghost of a bell.
I burned your face into the ceiling
and I wonder, just a little, if you can see
what horrors you caused to creep into my weathered blood.