Why

Why did you intermittently appear

In these waning minutes and seconds

To balance losses

From imperfect resolutions

That saved nothing we could touch

Designing insurmountable barriers

Dividing all but the salvaged assumptions

Whatever minor hope remained

Into strained fractions from fractions

Existing in the space below eternity

Announced in peripheral ringing of scandalous bells

Forcing a constant observance

Of leftover ghosts trapped in enveloping silence

Quietly chanting determined prophecies we feared to confront

Until that final hour

With hopes abandoning dreams

Resilient sorrows clinging to emptied souls

Erasing time in its spent fumes