“A Late Summer Sunset”
It’s almost dark, can’t you hear it?
We weren’t supposed to get this far.
The ending, the setting, the
quieting fire on the horizon.
Hold your breath and
count to ten, it shouldn’t hurt at all.
If you don’t think it will burn
then it won’t,
not at all.
It might feel good even,
if you let it soak in enough.
Like oil on skin, rubbing away the rust
of old scars.
Flesh won’t matter soon,
won’t matter at all.
At sundown in cold shadows,
there’s only silence and the moon.
Let it embrace you,
this hour in all its yearning glory.
The night will extinguish what came undone, and
there won’t be another morning.