Symbols linger in the sutures w
here I've stitched our lives together.
Your body figures in my future
with a boa's tender tether!
I've got a love to shelter us
like a flesh and bone umbrella!
A holy home hewn in stone,
sanctified and hallowed.
Well, you know
that deed will be deemed undue—
when they pry my cold dead hands off you!
Nimble fingers stroll
your velvet cheeks,
a tear appears and travels.
I've scoped the scape
and I will not speak
while brittle ties unravel!
A sanguine shrine! A bony tope!
But I see the ciphers in your eyes
like hungry hempen collars.
Well, you'll know you're free,
you'll know we're through—
when they pry my cold dead hands off you!
My hands can't set you free!
They cleave to thee,
or they fall to atrophy.
My hands have two holes
that sing where I clenched the rings,
where I wore the rood of love!
No agency, no measure
could lessen love's great torture!
But with my hands upon this treasure,
death itself becomes conjecture!