in the hall of mirrors: twenty and two

the poets are dead, buried beneath the incessant sucking sound
of an inhalation of the extraordinary, pounded and ground
to a fine powder, spread on the beds of roses, to wilt them.
to make of them just another memory. every petal. every stem.
the very perfect eroticism of the penetration lost to time.
lost to the failing light that once burned bright to climb
celestial stairs to the precipice of the heavens to preach
a gospel of charity and merged, purg'd fleshes that teach
us how to kiss and coit. how to surrender to our need
on our own terms, tacking against our natures to bleed
the sound of creation in the hall of mirrors. the splendour
of light, reflected again and again without surrender.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.