The Final Descent

Canto 1

ONE

I reach for the end, though the end will not reach for me.

It has already reached for him.

He is gone

while I, locked in Judecca’s ice,

go on and on.

If I could name the nameless thing

My father burns, and living worms fall from his eyes.

They spew from his sundered flesh.

They pour from his open mouth.

It burns, my father cries. It burns!

His contagion, my inheritance.

If I could face the faceless thing

From the fire’s depths, I hear the discordant duet of their screams. I watch them dance in the final, fiery waltz.

My mother and father, dancing in flames.

If I could pull the two apart

If I could untangle the knot

Find one errant strand to tug

And lay out the thing from end to end

But there is no beginning nor ending nor anything in between

Beginnings are endings

And all endings are the same.

Time is a line

But we are circles.