Your decorative trim, your ornamental gilded
absence swings again. When the ambulance arrives
paramedics question the lost black hair,
the woman in a pile in the snow.

The sun's senseless loss is our life.
But she loves you. Mind your decorative trim.

Your buddy is struck down. Sooner or later all things
run a course, usually theirs, but not always.
Your ornamental trim is no longer gilt.

When you walk down the stairs, your buddy
(not your breath) is waiting, swinging
with a girl, hair black as loss, twice as beautiful.
But neither are there.

Should we chant if the ambulance
pulls the plug and our sky goes dark?
Swinging loose it minds those crusty mornings
of a decorative past
when breath was your buddy
and a strong senseless sun lost.
Things are sold to preserve it.

You meet him with a lady your own,
so yielding she cannot stand.
From her mouth immaculate moments tumble;
a torrid shine. The course was not yours.


� 2004 by John Eivaz