At the End of the Night

More than two years of poison, he meandered
mulling over four score and a baby as old as his tumors.
The ghost of full-grown men make
the rest of us feel like night watchmen, plated
in false armor that's only as kind as white blood.

The record at least confirms that tinctures shifted steadily
through twenty-four hours wait he faced opposite his youth.
And the stays through the night, however arctic, are loyal.
There exists a normal quota of reminders that the sentence held.

And in some devious eloquence, the tragedy thickened.
For any other's holocaust there are stories told in pictures and not presence.
It's idiot relief when they sleep soundly,
being led home from one room, one bed, less defense.
Meat and bones are assaulted,
Gradually, all organs are blasted and life sometimes stops in the house.

The weird news travels through wounds
from one appointment with tulips to another.
Reluctant and grave, grief's fairly constant with a calm resolve to honor even death.
Since the birth of sycamore trees or the sea
the slight force of boggling serves up ends that are ample and strange.

The run of years, songs and pictures
are about as fallible as our flesh, eaten.
But salvaging Titans, the strong man in his prime, tenderly shines.
Graceful is dusk that turned a handsome one to dust.
It's beauty and pain hunting down the dawn.