Hackers: Rigor Amoris

by Gregory Walton-Green

 

He waits for her in the garden

Of ageless cold grey stone-

Sunken down in the middle,

At either end a throne.

 

The walls stretch up nearly eight foot-

Four walls of sodden clay.

They loom high up above him

As he waits for the end of the day.

 

He stands in wait as the sun sets

And the crows claw in through the mist.

As the world’s shadow hits the garden

He spies his wronged mistress:

 

Desired for the power she now holds,

Admired for all she’s been through-

Yet he still sees her as she was

When fair and good and true.

 

The crows call out for his judgement,

The crows call out for his doom,

The crows call his mistress towards him

Come to take him, through the gloom.

 

In the dark all the crows fall silent

As he sets himself on the throne.

He waits as she drifts through the night air-

He alone, in light, still as stone.

 

She falls on him that same moment

To share in his last ever day.

She kisses: her teeth pierce his lips

As a spade slides through soft clay.

 

He sits there as stiff as a statue-

Enchanted by his lost mistress.

She lingers against his face longer

And she clings to his body like mist.

 

She forces his face to look at her,

At the vision he dare not think true.

It reveals that his long pined-for mistress

Is a ghost he can see right through.

 

Now she glides back to her own throne

And mirrors him through the gloom

Tears stain the cheeks of the statue:

For his mistress, and their shared doom.