Goodnight

Théodore Géricault on His Deathbed (1824) by Charles Emile Callande de Champmartin

I watch the weight of death creep in

Through the cracks of your papered skin

And remember our first embrace,

The flush of your full, handsome face.

What a trick love has turned on us

To have grown and grafted us thus

Only to cut the budding stalk.

Ours is a story scribed in chalk.

You have taken a new lover.

I forgive. I will recover.

Sleep soundly, Dear, in her cold arms,

Only think of me despite her charms.