The Wages of Entropy

A Year of Sonnets — 046/365

Photo by Alex Baber on Unsplash

No, waiting’s not enough, nor holding hope,
a lacework blossom in an upturned hand
until the universe would throw a rope —
that would require the stars to understand
the grief, incarnate, flowing through these bones,
a frigid absolute beyond all light;
your misery the only thing you own,
where others have possessions, lovers, tight
against their skin, so indivisible;
there’s no unshaping loneliness’s touch,
the havoc wrought on flesh, invisible
to eyes, perhaps — but spirits see too much.

And you are lost, forever. Death delays
in harvesting its victims. You decay.