The Four Corners

.....softly, souls despair
in mute and private agony
snug hearts, disillusioned
lovers lost in their monogamy

laid to rest on beds of roses
house conserved with backyard fences
surround themselves with obscured vows...
bands of gold to confirm their conscience

purely personal feuding friends
resignations and retreats
to the small, blue solitude
the 4 mortgaged corners shifting in discomfort

we were like running horses
with heads toward eternity
sleek, and black and powerful
masculinity. We dug,

like rabid horses,
ferocious pits to bury
our big heads
blunt marrow-white hooves tearing at each others livers

All those days you sharpened the knife
knowing exactly what death looked like
it looked like our house,
floors strewn with bones and skulls and little dolls legs

it looked like your drawer
and cellophane wrapped army
of cheap cosmetics
god-like to age, fever and plague

the people and the stones grew tired
we never did
we rasped black, sweet blood mouthfuls at each other
how tired did we have to become?

tired enough to smile
and drown and pull each other down
you, the prim ghost the light would have shone through
I, the man of empty strides

those empty strides
made by broken men
doing their families proud
the cracked skin

and leathery hide days are gone
happiness is our loss now
like dying pets who've lost their voices
I cried and clawed against

what we had become
but you, in the bloom of your youth,
just smiled
and evolved
.....alone