Revenons à nos moutons, let us now
return to our subject, friend, tend to it
well the way good shepherds do their sheep, flock
together in full & final agreement

with yet another mind-numbing, freedom-
(of-thought-)denying crime-of-passion, lo-
fi life-sentence-(I mean life-)defining
saccharine lie of a trite sentiment

neither of us truly professes, no,
never did then and never will, believe
in, knowing how much you detest and show
no interest discussing it, deadlocked,

now you’re out there thinking marriage bestows
nothing but a bad debt, is called wedlock

for good reason, since it’s a prison-house
for lovers, endows us all with yet more
baggage to jettison, a legend talked
of, perpetuated, by ignorant

ones who want to wreck their relationships
by giving in to its death’s myth they bow
down to in worship, a funeral for
bored souls, an answer none ever question,

a rendezvous whose aim is to shadow
over with its dark jaws and consume all
who refuse to relent, choose faith’s hollow
abuses, fools crying fire when the shots

deluge, running toward what holds them down,
gunning for it, to drown in fraud’s onslaught.