A Thin Covering of Rust

With tears’ wash, Love’s enlacing bonds corrode,
all flowered with a broad embracing rust.
Impossible to smooth, stains cling to steel
and stick determined in its patterned crust.

Love celebrates its lengthy stay and steals
metallic screws that fill worn welder’s pails,
repairing fallen structures fixed with lead
but rotting with the virgin blood it yields.

Night falls and covers naked bodies found
in wisps of clouds that shroud these peeling walls
where love is whispered, then is wrapped around
bound, grasping, strangling fingers from above.

Jonathan Greenhause