The Companion of a Man

This is the story
of how we were all
once the companion of a man
who mauled our soul
with corrosive emotion
and grief.

The hand was bound
as it always is
in a shield
over another silent mouth
where no singing
was aloud.

The man didn't love the warble of our days,
but only counted the abundance of others
who were not his to count.

We wriggled free of the confines
of that greed and cloying closet of untruths
and walked as if our kettle was fully of new wine
and not of bitter boiled and then cold tea.

"Be faithful,"
he said
"Why do you loveth me not?"

We are gone to the sea
and the light of another
where he will never find the lonely heart
or the wise mind of many again.

This is that story
of loss and so much
more than grief.