TO MY FRIEND PETER

Dark, tired, sopping sobs--can you see these eyes?

They, as yours too, are unfamiliar with the night.

Of passing, leaving fables my ears know lies,

As though this give not the sharpest smite

Like blunt nails driving arms, two ends across,

How can this story’s ending be quite right?

This mouth, which flowed song but an hour ‘fore,

Chokes as wails of pain splinter at my throat.

My infantile mind, equipped not with this in store,

Fails still to grasp the sound of this minor note.

When the door flew closed I felt the Winter cold,

A chill unlike the saddest poem Poe ever wrote. 

A fragrance as foul as Death’s I shouldn’t know,

Its searing scent’s so strong it burns,

Like poisoned roses that in Spring can’t grow,

Or when our warmest Summer finally turns,

To dead leaves, bare trees, frosty yields of dark brown fields,

When with wishful wails my torn heart yearns.

‘Before you meet your ends and travel on,

And be dressed this time by me with worldly eyesight gone,

To depths unknown you’ll go, with a heavy burden and bearing load,’

But God, My God, down this path--down this road?