Down Cruciform Rows

Down Cruciform Rows

By

Matt McGuire

We had one night,
what seemed an endless
affair,
time inconsequential
and cast in bronze.
A dance, a song,
a revolution of the motherless
galaxies,
wherein I felt what it is to be
immortal.
I cried,
Is this an angel before me?
And I plead for you to affirm
that I need not fear,
for the oftener I gazed into your radiance,
the less I was able to tear myself
away,
and the more inextricable I became
from your aura,
the more I feared you would
vanish.

All songs must end,
however,
and the liveliest band grows tired,
but we remained and still
remain,
still,
fixed in a moldy photograph
tucked in the pages
of a gray stained newspaper,
pinned to the paneling,
wrapped in plastic,
and yellowing with age.

The by-line reads,
ARMISTICE,
and with my cloth cap cocked
upon your curly, hennaed hair,
we greeted peace,
as we now greet Time,
together,
under the stars,
you beneath the elm of a French Abbey,
and me in Arlington,
down cruciform rows,
bone white
and timeless.