The Last Fight

Like watching a car crash

steel crushing steel, shrieking metal

some freak tragedy

a tornado—

its wailing cylinder of madness

scorches ground

and earth’s crust crumbles

what once had form

collapses to chaos

an impending disaster

the storm’s rampage, imminent

heart, sick and sinking

mind cowers and shrinks in its skull

powerless, I wait

for the pain

and for what has been built up

to be torn down

abruptly, violently

a colossal tree uprooted

its limbs wild, angled and jagged

how like the flash of a mirror

this sudden inversion

when love transforms to animosity

when companion turns enemy

you tear a hole in my fabric

and abandon it, raw and gushing

yesterday I was a whole and ripe fruit

today only limp skin remains

a black wolf races in the night

its flashing eyes set

on the lamb’s tender, woolen throat

insults rage

from your hot, volcanic hole

how your tongue can ignite

and in flames go years of goodwill, memories

it seems our life the one we thought was built with stone is but a wooden pyre

awaiting a single match