Another Good Friday, Good Death

It was easy: staring stonily into the ice-splintered sea
of the glass, the cold anchor of speared olive,
ass adjusted to jagged cushion of rock amid a garden
of skull and shards. Always easy: the toast to his own

mutilation, so natural, engraved epitaph of want.
So right, old hound stationary and cautious of falling,
snout west toward all that passes, panting smile
to greet a breeze that, while merely echo of storm,

still trembles just-greening crosses of limbs.
The man allows himself a smile, too, recollection
of five dollars dispensed earlier in coin,
twenty clinking pieces to precise, mechanical purse.

Seductive, to let it go, one's life for a meager price,
and to play both roles—for what friend might one trust
with betrayal? Resurrection was the bother:
the bitch, the bear, the hammer, impossible chestnut.

Now, cool liquid holy on his lips, clear blood.
In three days she'd be home, these holidays passed over.
He'd rise rotting from their bed, loose the tatters
of a soiled shroud, scatter himself across her like ash.

Copyright © 2006 Gaylord Brewer All rights reserved
from The Greensboro Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission