Antebellum: #2 Poem by Windsor Guadalupe Jr

An unfathomable hysteria
Drifts toward me
When the jagged rocks
Try to topple you.
I kept count of the grips
With these calloused hands that
Held you hastily
I can feel my fingertips
Sink in – such torment
For it feels as if
Submerging myself
In the subterfuge of a sea
That has carved you into
A deity.

The candles have been
Extinguished and the nuisance
Wanes into the hollow chasms
Of the synagogue
The church bells chimed
A mad clangor
As I am mad with fervor
Whilst silenced by your
Own reticence and soft sighs.

I can feel the warfare
Rummaging through my
Viscera. A starved platoon
Of efflorescence
That seeks your effulgence.
Yet I know,
No matter how you have
Existed before the war,
You will evanesce
And you will seep and slither
Away as time
Slowly takes you adrift
Away from me,
Underneath the wooden beams
And synthetic ivies.