Laundering

Like the unclothed lover lays stretched across canvas, The year was splayed across a wait without closure; I’ll see the end when the end is over. But death is as flat as words offered out of concern; It was kicked across a churchyard that since has burned. And in time, I drowse in a conscious breadth, Where eternity seems far worse than death. We use our time like we money launder. An excess that we reluctantly offer, Plain day standing red-handed at the coffer. Coating holes with poetics, For the self we abandon. Heaping higher powers, From the virgins that we ransom. And the flame goes; The lives tick down. I scream to wake the waning crowd: "The time that came for us is now.”