The Death of Love

   The Death of Love

The death of love numbs like paralysis

Or like a tetanus infection in

A purple vein, a poison sans its hiss,

A serpent spurting venom lacking sin.

This end has lain, lurked voiceless from the start

Behind an evergreen, beside a rock,

Unknowable to an unsuspecting heart

Until the revelation of fate’s shock.

We could have seen it coming, prophesied

Contagion, toxins, rot.  In fact we did,

But let lips, kiss and tongue act as eyes, lied

With tongues touching tips, caressing each lid.

  Probably our bones knew better than our

Hearts.  We ignored the skeletal dumb lour.