death came a-leaning against my door frame

on that day when i was stained

wet

with the desire

known by blooming roses

leaning over tall stone walls

veni veni

there is no essence

like bones

dried and white

empty sockets staring

nothing like the leaves

torn beneath crushing feet

and what they expose of you:

the bare branches

the gleeful children,

remembering

gathered together we

spoke of the things that matter

holding nothing but

tea despair laughter

over the most common of terrors

that there will be no letters

from the postman

nothing to weave us into the

richness of the life of the caring

and the meaning-making

and the substance of well-being

bills letters funeral arrangements

and that in meeting our obligations

we are forgetting our real duty

to the dead:

to pave the way

for the unborn.

when death walked by

in the guise of the half-living

i had her pressed against the church

wall

soft against soft

i might have

fucked her

then

but for that strand of convention

and the inconvenience

of skirts and jeans and such material

things

instead i just left

stained

no virgin pretentious pureness here just the

flesh and sticky nectar;

memory of your hands

before you ambled back to your

shadow-lover