Beauty is found to be ugly.
Grease-yellow as plastic plates.
Gases stuck with breath.
A hollow torso withering
and unrequited.
 
With the coming of darkness,
a dog howls to the sky.
A signal of love retained –
under the blankets
and in the temples.
 
A passion impaled on any flesh,
again and again.
And hope rises from the
mountains to the roadside.
No clenched fist,
just prouder to the end.