These days we just hold him.
Hold him living.
Only the heart
still pounces on him.
To the dismay
of our distaff cousin, the spider,
he will not be devoured.
We permit his head,
pardoned centuries ago,
to rest upon our shoulder.
For a thousand tangled reasons
it’s become our practice
to listen to him breathe.
Hissed from our mysteries.
Broken of our bloody ways.
Stripped of female menace.
Only the fingernails
still glitter, scratch, and retract.
Do they know,
can they guess
that they’re the last set of silverware
from the family fortune?
He’s already forgotten
he should flee us.
He doesn’t know the wide-eyed fear
that grabs you by the short hairs.
He looks as if
he’d just been born.
All out of us.
All ours.
On his cheek,
an eyelash’s imploring shadow.
Between his shoulder blades,
a touching trickle of sweat.
That’s what he is now,
and that’s how he’ll nod off.
Truthful.
Hugged by a death
whose permit has elapsed.