A tangle of passions, in the plural
rather than singular and shared,
had brought them to this pass,
their desires and aspirations mismatched,
so that when the incensed burned out
and the wine bottle ran dry,
no one was surprised, not really,
at the expiration of what had become
mere ritual, mere ritual marked
for duty’s sake, no longer
a feast of cannibalistic fervor.
Then came a season of resignation
before the explosion that ended it all.
Afterward, there were tears, but those
dried up as well, and the world
creaked a bit on its axis
but continued to turn.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
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