when the perennial essential question I proposed,
a temperature taking surely,
a simple request re loving me, yes

it was a dueling pistol shot,
a returning, pressing, single firing
interrogatory of a burr of a bullet  
"how"

she stood in weak opposition

she demurred, evaded, jooked,
pre-tensing with a faint, a feint,
a desperately disguised,
claiming of the fifth,
a refusal to self-incriminate,
with a childlike repetition
 "unsure..."

but was she ever,
ever sure,
ever knowledgeable

for the poem was
"of the people, by the people, for the people,"

we, me, she,
of course, being "the people"
-
that our love
"shall not perish from the earth..."

this particular poem,
this particular address,
was about
the struggle to maintain
our union
-
"our unfinished task"

it was the
first shot and the
parting shot

it was the
warning shot,
mesmerizing,
metastasizing
into a
death shot

simultaneously

the poem was,
this poem

the acknowledgment,
of the beginning
of the
perhaps epilogue,
maybe even the commencement  
of a eulogy

a  breathewell,
a fare-thee-well of this,
as well,
one of his
happiest guises

writer of
*only love poetry