Pilgrims

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We made outrageous demands
on each other no matter the horrors
Love when it was flush
barred no passage between us
You fed my fevers in arcades
of a Gothic cathedral,
cradled me in tide pools as
funeral trains stood steaming
Look at the teeth in my eyes:
turn them blue; rub the coins
in my palms and steer blindly
Clouds beg no protection, why should we?
What have we done with destinations
but rubbed our faces in them?
All our money went to hell,
there are other defeats to measure,
blacker markets to enter
You rose like violet shade to drown me:
Something I forgot to show you! you said
This haunting refrain was no joke not with you so
prone to taking the disastrous back roads.
What if the one thing we promised
not to forget is the one thing we need now?
numbers, keys, cross-streets?
or what the third gate was?
the misplaced parchment?
We’ll never know now will we stupid!
(having forgot it) but something else
will remember
that was the parting shot
as we emptied our hearts
in polar directions
asking nothing to guide us