There is no cure for passion,
nor poverty, save for shillings
pouring forth from the urns
at the defunct church:
ashes of saints and minions,
unaware that history
is a game in which we are
played like wind instruments
from 14th century France,
broken on the knee of churls,
then painstakingly repaired
by the world’s last luthier.
You play at the dulcimer
to a harem of nymphets
while I walk upon water,
causal reality a makeshift
stage for your plebiscite
resurrection, spectacle
(and spectrality’s) death
leaving us clutching our
ticket stubs, and then each
other, at the carnival’s exit
gate, too astonished to feel.