A practical deity.

Flashing back to the ’70s.

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Of the few times I’d seen you cry,

That was the one.

The one that showed me

Just how broken you’d become.

Just inside, you’d ruled the night,

With blasphemies and wine

But you had to make a point.

We had to step outside.

You know, I forget sometimes

I haven’t already written about this.

That I just let this particular story exist

Without a song.

Without a poem, or a painting.

I just let it weave itself through

Them all.

Without a manifestation,

Or a name.

But there, among a countless multitude

Of headless, endless hours,

Was a sign.

A symbol, for my eyes to detect,

And to be carefully plucked

From the patchwork skin of the distracting,

Overwhelming Demon

Whose own fate it would betray.

And maybe I was lucky,

Or maybe it was obvious,

But I caught it.

When it happened.

The first time.

I saw it.

The humanity.

And also, the end.

Actually coming.

I can remember my shoulders shifting back

And my chest inflating.

I was confident that I knew.

If only for a moment, if only in that place,

I knew you could lose.

And I saw a smile escape

As you wiped your eyes,

In the ghostly glow

Of a newborn Moon.