by Peter Gallaher
Desperate little thing
Who, shyly hovering
About the last bit of summer sweet,
Has so much, so much to balance on wings' beat
In your hollow eyes, on your flesh stripped feet.
The press of time, frantic, and the host refusing.
Instead the owner using.
Oh precious light diffusing, fading, stay.
You so deeply need
Your fading self to feed.
On another day those who live will say
It couldn't couldn't have mattered
The small bits others scattered
While your world ended, your life shattered.
As if they already knew
That you
And millions more would soon
Die alone, one by one.
Die then at last. Fly free.
Cease your hungry hovering.
Famine of the soul is a season, too,
And through it and death you will surely pass
Seraphic light through immortal glass
To shine on those who dwell in darkness
In the curtained room where
Their dead eyes still unseeing stare.
