Chloe

There were skies onyx at night... moons by day... lakes pale as her eyes... breathless winds undressing tall elms; ... she would say that we loved, but some book said we'd sinned. Soon impatiens too fiery to stay sagged; the crocus bells drooped, golden-limned; things of brightness, rinsed out, ran to gray... all the light of that world softly dimmed. Where our feet were inclined, we would stray; there were paths where dead weeds stood untrimmed, distant mountains that loomed in our way, thunder booming down valleys dark-hymned. What I found, I found lost in her face by yielding all my virtue to her grace. Originally published by Romantics Quarterly as "A Dying Fall"