Poem: A Widow

 A Widow

a Widow culls

the wails of lovers,

wanton as she goes,

smiling still

 

from mansion to shack

to home to hearth,

every incident of bed

beleaguered.

 

She watches dreams

from ants to lions and

 elephants who dwindle 

down tusky roads,

and the ill to violent swarms

who beat on misunderstood ground.

how they clutch it as they sink,

such sentimental liars.

almost everyone

lurched when lungs stalled,

cashiering for a coffin

their chains and chores.

a few rare songbirds 

chirped last cadenzas.

and these, the Widow thought,

never turned to dust.

 

and yet those tethered to tombstones,

or ladderlike prayers, 

they always went down.

and those who archived long lists

of what was or wasn't.

 

so it went, tempus edax, 

from mansion to shack to home to hearth,

incursions everywhere,

wherever death fed openly 

and naked.

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6/26 ... tried to sort out tenses

9/7/24 ... radically altered poem ... scary poem

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I would prefer to use "wym" instead of the male-aligned "men."  "Wym" escapes gender.  But the neologism would be distractive.

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