Published in Spinning Jenny, 2010.

 

So this is how love dies:

 

supine on the worn mosaic of an overcrowded floor,

legs splayed out

like thick vegetation

out of season and inappropriate

 

blood carmine on shiny new ground

white marble so it shows up

too well

the rage of a life unlived

 

So this is how love dies:

fallow

broken

earth

conjoined

in the untilled palms of our hands