Two of Cups (Reversed)

hold fast / possession
by Adrian Belmes

Recollection does not suit a liar,
but you are only my latest exception.

Once, I kept this body cloistered,
lonely, well defended in a hostile place,

but you sowed my heart with promises
and drew me up like desperate rain into your soil.

You offered me a blooming death, a patient end,
to finish with these hands my work and so myself in them consume.

“This is a hatred that becomes you,” you had said,
and I believed that this was true.

What then, did my loyalty belie?

A little fetish to be held between the fingers.
An open fist clasped tight around a thorn.

You built this garden to expire. After all:
A rose, when cut, begins at once to die.

What faith do I betray
returning only what you gave?

This unrepentant bitterness, a mark upon my neck that will not heal,
a wound I will resent as Judas did his stopgap gold.

It is no forgotten matter to have been your all,
and all at once, nothing at all.

Adrian Belmes (he/him) is a reasonably depressed Jewish-Ukrainian poet and book artist residing currently in San Diego. He is editor in chief of Badlung Press and has previously been published in SOFT CARTEL, Philosophical Idiot, Riggwelter Press, X-R-A-Y, and elsewhere. His chapbook, this town and everyone in it, was published by Ghost City Press.