Lovers do not take lovers back. Leaves
fall,

forest floors drifts. What I hold now
is not

what I held then. There are gaps
alcohol

cannot close. The cum on my chin. The
blot

on your spring dress. The blood-rites
for Amour.

All that excites; all that has been
wasted.

I drink with pills and once more I’m
cocksure.

I can salve hurt ghosts and love the
haunted.

I’m their shadow of frisson, quiver,
throb.

The dead demand. Not even Mama Frigg

could hold them back; but let me be,
tonight,

all that can calm libidos gone macabre.

The dead line up the shots. Swig after
swig,

then I draw them close, I hold the lost
tight.

][][

note:

In Norse mythology Frigg is the goddess
of married women and frustrated masturbation. She has since evolved
into British slang as any form of masturbation; see, the Sex Pistols’
“’Friggin’ In The Riggin’” from, “The Great Rock and
Roll Swindle” (1980).