Your lily-livered lover
made carnal burns on
the quiet, dead next to
the language born from
a treacly tongue,
however ungiving
as if left starved, as if a road hound
A hush is all that's left now—
to want, to share, to pardon—
but whose? When all's halved
with this clangor
that used to be a sound?
That but which made the deaf
most understand;
That but which made an infidel
most reverent;
That but which made the dead
most recognize.
Dénouement:
With lesser and lesser there is to learn, the world burns—its last way of yearning—thinking we're dead.
What the quiet does so much to the world that does so much for the dead who'd do so much for the living who've done so little.
