The Riddle of Impatience

Four years ago, facing a crumbling marriage and an uncertain future, the poet wrote this romantic ode to patience and faith...in a seduction. But I actually believe that this was one last effort to save a relationship that had made it through brutal times only to see the gray days (and outside influences) tear it apart.

The Riddle of Impatience

warmth enough for two,
few share with any sense of synergistic sin,
but take skin between tender talons and test
the winds of surrender to the forces of a sky
red rimmed and rapacious, the cursed thirst
drawing out of us the need to bleed seed
in the consecration of the warm wine,
christening the glistening membranes
with pain and stain and swain's refrain,
learned in the cunning craft of seductions.
and we are not better than the bettors
who lost their nerve and took short odds
rather than seek the skies on the way to heaven
in and through the arms and charms of love.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.