in memoriam ii

By Martins Deep

The night you died, Echo never stopped howling

poor dog, barking and barking
restless as your fingers over the pages 
of a Bible you never read

until you started seeing ghosts, of friends
who died in the civil war, calling your name
after all your lost dreams. asking you, what’s the point?
you fight for life, and yet it betrays you

i stood outside, by your window,
sketching with an ember,

a faceless horseman giving you a hand from a body 
marked with the many lovebites of a scalpel

it’s 8:45 p.m. i put on your radio, wear your unwashed clothes, 
and sit beside your blind dog

to pretend it’s you. and only by scent

…and waiting for death
that never came for you under the orange tree.