-when love dies-

when love dies 

its history is noted, if noted, as a cold

and dry space;— an echo

in the dead of a moonless winter's night.

when love ends

it staggers backward, flat-footed
as if hit by a frozen fist,—

as something to be flushed-out,
ambushed, knocked-down,

where nothing, not an ember
of its early fire is left 
to lay quietly on the heart.

why such a fatal dance?

when love dies it dies with a sharp crack, 

or an awkward carelessness at the tips

of ballpoint pens.
love’s end moves, if it moves, in a punch-

drunk waltz.

love’s death lays upon the altar

bloodied by the sacrifice.

This is the page frozen in love's closing,
when its memory should be worth something,
not simply thrown to the ash heap when the fire is snuffed.