Limerence

It has stilled to the rhythm of the elegy

the wave drums out against Coney Island,

unquiet yearning like saudades in flesh

Wrathful Orpheus & cursed Daphne

these are now the only saints you understand

Martyrdom withheld & you endure, languishing

at the apple tree, celestial garden a gilded cage

What you would give to descend

to the land of the sybaritic sinners, where

your beloved frolics at midnight

in the bygone cathedral, wretchedly unaware,

rare devotion in a brief body, preserved

for another blessed thief, a lesser corporeal

---

Cover Photo by Willow Kang Liew Bei.