“Poison Chalice”
There’s an empty space
full of your young lover’s knife heart
in sighs of celebrations
already past calendars
dweller of the cellar if shadows earn
caring for an urn if shadows yearn
licked clean if shadows burn
for edible handcuffs picked by fingers
rubbed bedroom slippers to lemon
coat of winds: creatures of the night
squeezed, bent against this cross
spoiled to milk by this whip of ivy
treasure chest and jewelry horns
we swoop in owl pellet skeletons
we feed for a feckless princess
on the freckles of your mourning
blessed willow hopes of swallowed rope
salty in the sunlight of sadness
one last lost gown to be worn forever:
regretted lace secrets.
nicholauspatnaude 
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