The Man and the Cemetery Effigy

The years of failure had wounded his hope beyond
recovery. The erotic postures of possible futures
no longer duped him. His path closed.

Each evening he watched the drape of light
dissolve as night disrobed. At noon he knew
the nakedness of darkness. He stood on the ice of time

waiting to fall through. Then one night
he wandered like a homeless drunk in the cemetery
among the black flames of the trees, the whispering

leaves, the moonlit stones in rows like teeth
with nothing but the sky to bite against,
and there he found the black angel spreading

its wings of despair like a wall eclipsing the stars,
and he knelt in nausea to receive its benediction
and was told to find his freedom in hopelessness,

to find his dignity in obscurity, and to root
his life among the dead where even those
who would be gods eventually grow human.