And then, in an instant of forever,
they found us
sitting
in the fields of Asphodel
watching
as ghost winds tiptoe across ripe barley
and the sun slips into its gradual demise,
like the last trembling note of an aged double bass,
into his mother’s firm-fingered dusk—!

(I gasp)

your arms
wrap
around me
like hotel linen
the softness of it all
tantalizing
to the dry, raspy pores on my skin that ache,
begging,
for the sweet wet dew that sits on your lips
so beautiful on you and never on me.

your fingers
delicate
from the years they’ve blessed the church piano
close
so steadily
around my throat
like a mother draping embroidered silk necklaces
onto her darling child’s soon-to-be-married neck
and I


die.