Work Text:
Pale Horse Rider
He remembers the toast, his false smiles,
the words that dripped from a tongue
accustomed to lies.
The champagne's fizzled poison
burned his throat, churned his guts.
His recall of nights spent in laughing
company,
shed now for his friend's more precious
love:
the girl whose shy eyes gleamed in
possession
of name
as his friend disappeared in willing
bondage
and nuptial kisses.
The flat, half-empty and silent,
not even whispers of the unspoken
that had hovered like a
spell
above them all those months.
From the shelf, he surveys
ruins
and seeks his earlier friend:
the one who was always faithful,
waiting
with china white lids
and gummed black eyes,
grinning,
a deaths head bosom
to lay his head upon
and dream of what never
was.
Briony James. 8/29/14