Seventh Circle

In Hell,
We plunged arms
Elbow deep into the firelake
And pulled out black scarecrow limbs
That dripped like toffee apples
And fizzled like crack spoons.
On burnt twig digits
Our wedding rings gleamed like new
And we marvelled at hot blood that steamed and steamed.

In Hell,
We fucked by firelight on slow baked stone
And our bodies cast huge shadow puppets
Against grotto walls.
Hunched knurls of rock threw our moans
And screams straight back to us
Untaxed, turning slow missionary screws
Into booming candlelit orgies
And as we lay on our backs in the afterglow
We'd always say
That we'd never felt less alone.

In Hell,
We dropped face-first into volcano snouts,
Dissolving like sugar lumps,
Oozing molten through hidden, corrugated seams
Until ten, maybe twenty years later
We'd awaken
Cooling on smooth black plateaus
Our eyelids crusted with glass dust.

Hell gave us eternity.
With death behind us
We embraced pain
Like a fierce new emotion
Or the extra eye
We'd always been too scared to open.

Those demon days
We stepped into steam jets
Till flesh sloughed loose
Like wet dough
And while we passed ecstatic hours
Pinioning each other mid-fuck
To suck eyeballs from sockets
Like sweet warm oysters

Up in Heaven
They sat calmly in easy chairs,
Gazing at nothing in particular
And waiting
For a go
On the one working pool table.