In the thick 

of our holy quarrel

you leaned in 

to whisper 

the most important thing,

but were silent,

I set out to attain nothing more

than myself, and before long, 

had no money 

and only one tooth,

I believed I knew the contents  of the firing chamber, knew  the sear surface and hammer materials, until one day at the zoo, as I leaned on a railing watching the gibbons balletic, I saw in the acrylic panel enclosing the cage my own reflection, an unarticulated skeleton in a specimen jar. As snow fell …