Hannah

I think, Hannah, when you say

"I don't believe in marraige", 1. that

You are lying, and 2. that what

You mean is that

You don't believe in love.

You grieve that you have faced

The god not of man but of woman,

That you have faced her with Firstfruits and

Lamb and yet that god has not

Said a word.

I think tha tyou mean that your blood

Does not cry from the ground, that there is

No bitterness like believing

In a ghost.

Oh God, a cheap unleavened bread

Uneatable only by children. And

Sham or no sham the parade

Saunters forward,

A beat that will bludgeon you

Deaf.

I think you mean that you beat out love

Like a cheap irreverent beat.

Slack hymn, a widow's hymn, and you

Widowed before you were wed.

You tap your tattoo shameless,

Not with the concrete glaze of the Athiest,

But the listless longing of the Lost.

There is no shame in the widow's song

But sorrow. There is only

Sorrow, and the disinterested breaths

Of youth retreating, always retreating

Behind it.