A Eulogy for Romance

A shot rings out between the weathered walls
of an old city;
a little pop
that flits
between the tiers of brick and
twisted iron balconies
at dawn.

Bodies turn within their sheets;
minds caught up in the forest of a dream.
They stir, and nothing more.

It's a city of flowers, of hyacinth and lily
and morning glories twisting toward the moonrise
in the dark.
Cherry blossoms clot the gutters in the spring and disappear
beneath the swell of creeping phlox
when autumn comes.

And this is a city of roses.
City of red.
A shot rings out and there are rubies growing up like pleated rose petals
between the scales of the cobblestone.

What is the life of a mayfly.
away, away, away.

Bodies turning within their sheets
as a shadow falls in the city.

She finds she does not like the feeling of being bounced,
or the jolt of alarm
that sounds within her belly at the apex
of a Ferris wheel;
a shocked kind of caution,
where disbelief goes
to be suspended.
Like bodies turning in their sheets
at the shudder of some wrongdoing
just outside the balcony;
like furrowed brows and cuts of worried looks
across the centerpiece
when something unexpected
comes to rap upon the door.

And she finds the city calm and
apathetic.
Candles melting into kerosene,
into petroleum,
into static.
Morning glories wilting at the dawn.

The romantics all are dead, she sighs,
or else they're loitering in the streets,
unwanted,
like ghouls and other misplaced things;
they pepper the night with tragedy
planting  roses
in the alleyway
at dawn.

A shot rings out at dawn
and the morning glories,
moonlit bloomers
turn away
with a heavy sigh.