The past,
a tattered hymnal,
crumbling praises here
there and flitting
past another night,

perfect with invisible
beauty just beyond,
a temporary afterlife
breathing beside me,

I join the emptiness,
the merciful emptiness
of One.

Love was many a ladies'
birthright.

Ladies can have it.

But I do envy those who
feast upon decedent sorrow.

Such luxury to need no appointment
for pain,

to wear it like shrapnel
deep within,
even give yourself a medal
for all your eloquent
weeping.

The moon is a host in
the hands of an
Olympian priest.

She's always something
and new every night.

Now an orthodox ghost,
half-eaten,
ordained in glass,

bloated with souls too
beautiful for our world,

but still a life force
blessing all the world's pain,

the pain I cannot afford . . .

She's that decomposing
teacher who saved you
in grade school.

Sacred.

And now lost in a swamp of clouds.

Oh, the luxury of being lost.
No need to be seen,
no need for a soul.

Stars, swallowed and spit out
like quantum particles,
here and not here
and always believed in,

scrambled like the dream
the young call love.

Close your curtain,
whimpering zodiac,

let emptiness well up,
drown it all

and be something.

And in something elsewhere
and forgiving
I'll be strong.

© Patricia Joan Jones