i. Superbia/Humilitas

Here’s to hoping that our fabled bones
     will share a home filling the same cold
     reliquary, tables of stones spread
     out with dead unpolished memories
     a river threw up as its depths threw
     open what lonesome gateway our hands
     held shut, holding them as together
     we put to rest what our hearts could not.

                              ii. Avaritia/Caritas

Alive, a lie unsutures its mouth
     above watermarks with burnt lip prints
     covering cuts, its leonine claws
     line from inside a casket cough whose
     rib-tined throat forks over sighs it climbs
     to speak out against being buried
     allied to us both, shouting against
     Euclid’s Fifth Postulate, ‘Death is proof!’

                              iii. Luxuria/Castitas

Meeting in silence a d(r)aft third act
     attaching its faked climax where our
     dénouemonument collapsed, a third
     hand reaches around, diddling hallowed
     ground, doing black magic as its does
     the math, feeling its pearl-slick path dripped
     across that same riverbed chaos
     forever laps as thick fingers thrust.

                              iv. Invidia/Benevolentia

Scorned paramour our past resurfaced
     to attack this tomb of lovers few have
     decided to inhabit, perhaps
     due to the fact suicide pacts have
     been failing to attract eternal
     partnership as fervently as ours
     has, here’s to hoping that what two nude
     bodies lack, a part of you has.

                              v. Gula/Temperantia

That primal void a third soul black-eyes
     as perfect to fill with itself, since
     it’s not the crack but a heart’s beating
     through that warms a tomb, not by letting
     in solar fingers, but setting out
     an invitation to enter us,
     ever hopeful that, as we flower
     this bed, another traveler will.

                              vi. Ira/Patientia

Until this ivory-armed artist,
     this gilded gardener without guilt,
     worms his or her way through our tomb’s tight
     tunnel, we wait and perform poems
     knowing he or she will come to show
     them who sought to sever love that like
     weeds, we swallow whoever showers
     us in their musk’s fragrant company.

                              vii. Acedia/Industria

Believing in such a visitor
     is what uncovers our legacy,
     seeding this dream wet with potency
     so that we can encounter the world’s
     four corners without leaving the deep
     sanctity of our ménage à trois’
     shared sanctuary, we three the sum
     of latent desire and fantasy.