Biblical

by M. P. Powers

the fat equations of the evening
have found me here, lying in the probable
bones of someone else's
dream, living with the red wraiths
who've cramped my sanity, and never beg
pardon or say excuse me
for leaving gaslights burning in the attic
all night, or when they stole the virgin-
colored roses from me one spring...
i should've known, three or four years before...
living in this profound caricature
i affectionately call my own

against whose throat the bedsheets
are guillotined... while the rain weeps
upon my memory
for the one night in the world i was christened
a sinner, and given no chance for an acquittal...
it seems only natural then
that after all these years, every
springtime finds me again, listening
to footsteps upstairs and the haunted screams
of my daunting fervor...

with beer for my tears and a black-
rose in my hand,
my heart holds onto death religiously