Requiem

Untitled by Eugene Ivanov

 

what altar will cradle your bones
anoint them in wine
when already red-soaked
infested with vines
they want no redemption
and couldn’t care less
if they’re damned

will they dance their escape
from an ill-fitting grave
or stumble and fall
with a rickety clamor
out of all visual memory

so tearlessly sad
those bones
didn’t live long enough
to lie in an elderly coffin
didn’t live strong enough
to make deep impression
leaving instead
mere dents on some minds
from cirrhotic splinters
you turned into
soft mealy knives

make an exit
one way or another
too quiet, too soon
too alone and ungrieved
or robust and riotous
dying out loud
leaving long wrinkled trails
of wailing and gnashing
and legacies
hot enough
to burn up the world

 

 

From my book Range of Motion