DEATH ON A PALE HORSE

Circumstance guards way before

Targets long out of reach but forever

Emblazoned on mind’s horizon.

Like phase or water without wetness

Sheer incline to other slope

So that shibboleth becomes

Token of last year’s dope

Or cagey proportion not quite sized

For the next reason. How completely

Dandy, doing dithers in slivered

Solicitude or postcoital entropics.

Seize the tone or time’ll

Trick every last one of you, it’s

That close, that final.