The violence of his cowardice echoes
softly around him like feathers
in the aftermath of a cataclysm
which never quite came to fruition.
The silence is dull and pervasive;
it clings to him like a baby’s skin
elastic and cloying. He flinches
with each breath, then flees ecstatically.
His thoughts, slavering hounds, follow
heads bent as if penitent monks.
He longs after a kinder obliteration
to ignore his inevitable recompense.
Yet from this snuffling terror’s howl,
there is no absolution, no escape.
(June 19, 2016)
subtext 