Ignoble Life

We live in the shadows of your cursed survival
 not being killed when so many of you were
the endless rows of benighted headstones
telling of memories never to be
where you wander among them
pledging your heart to what unrequited
condemns you to time
we walk together through years of separation
the voices of the dead confirming
the tryst of our silence
 forever pretending that a lyric
can be written after the music stops
that its words can be sung by the Angel guardians
of those long departed
and ignoring my devotion
you embrace the rejection of  
the one who never loved you back…
the paramour who condemns you to live in misery
and to live with me
—jilted by death

(Watching ‘Hemingway’ On PBS: April, 2021)