Orpheus Listens to the Requiem of His Own Undoing 

		Orpheus Listens to the Requiem of His Own Undoing
	 
	 
	Orpheus hears his songs played on broken strings,
	A dirge plucked soft by an old man with blight.
	He laughs at this fiasco, cringes as it rings,
	Echoes bending, whispering through trees at night.
	
	Behind him, nova bass lines swell and roll.
	He imagines the dancers weaving in a line,
	The wading birds now gone—silent in their toll,
	Their scattered iambs left to beachgoers’ time.
	
	Orpheus remembers the time he turned back to her and
	her hair brushed his knuckles, forgiveness in motion—
	when his mouth formed her name and the wind swallowed it whole—
	the lyre limp by his side, mute, splintered—
	the salt of her on his fingers shining bright.
	
	He pleads; time will not rewind for beggars.
	He cries; sorrow will not soften, nor undo.
	He sets his vision on a new career—foreteller.
	
	Again, in the recollection—he loses his time, theirs too.
	He fixes his fate, throwing his lyre
	into the swirl—its keys, its chords—
	until all song surrenders to riptide’s pulse.