Post-Self

A dream within a dream within a dream
and fell visions sidling up too close
both woo me. Sweet caramel and soft cream
sit cloying on their tongues, and I, Atropos
to such dreams as these, find shears on golden thread.

I would not cut, nor even could, had I but wished
to sever this golden thread — and every thread
is golden — and end a friend and send to mist
and sorrow ones so dear. Dead! Dead! She is dead
and gone, for her own shears were sharper still.

And so she cut, and so they watched, and so I watched
such love as this cease. I yearn to say that she returned
to me, became a part of me, but a tally notched
among the lost was all that stayed when life was spurned
by the call of death — supposedly ended.

So, she is gone and now our lives are darker for it,
and now this world is where the shadows lie,
and all the light that still remains is forfeit,
and so much green still stabs towards the sky,
and yellowed teeth of lions still snap at the air.