POEM - The Echoing Knell

My eyes were distant secrets,

watching you cry beside

that empty riverbed

My thoughts imagined you, comforted

by the unexpected company

of safe arms;

and surely you’d fall into them

with the immediacy of a loveless ghost,

ready to take form,

and offer comfort in return

with the shapely heartbeat beneath

a needful negligee

  

So busy, was my eager mind,

projecting thick desire upon you,

that I failed to notice

the mirror-glass in your hand

The sky momentarily darkened

as you began to slit your wrists

And when that little cloud

gave way, again, to moonlight,

it looked like your fingers were feeding

strawberry milk to the topsoil

As the lightning began thundering,

I was a harmless bolt, struck by your side

— anything to be beside you —

There I found conflicted tears

in the widest eyes I’d ever seen

Your dirty palms shook as they firmly felt

for the reality of my panicking frame

Yet no attempt at salvation was made

by either of us

Dying, you pulled my lips

down on your own

A welcoming moan was as close

as you came to any spoken word,

while I touched you to my shallow

and breaking heart’s content

  

I kissed and caressed until you were gone;

something which took no longer than

for that first drop of rain to become

a river, falling from the night sky

You’d been more than fantasy;

you’d been lovable, and very much alive

But I had come too late, having waited

for an unnecessary invitation

…

I slid your unsavable remains

into the now-flowing stream,

shattered that shard which once

loathed your reflection,

and hoped this lesson

would never need relearned